Quest through Time
by TimeGuardian
Summary: Jessie begins a desperate journey through time to save all that she knew, but reliving the past is harder than it seems, and an enemy will try and make her future a short one.
1. Desolation

_**Quest through Time**_

_By Time Guardian_

_Chapter One – Desolation_

In the afternoon sun over Maine, four black helicopters were heading back to their clandestine base. Their formation was quick and tight, and their missile carriers were all empty.

They had their mission and their target, and only moments ago the mission was carried out swiftly and quickly.

The pilot in the lead helicopter checked his onboard clock, and with a decisive gesture, spoke into the microphone built into his helmet. "Storm Hawk One calling base, Storm Hawk calling base, come in."

The communication channel he was on was specially picked by his boss. The pilot knew that their organization had taken great pains to conceal their purpose, and knew that the channel had been scrambled. Everything had to be perfect. Their boss would want nothing less.

Moments after he had sent the hail, the lead pilot finally received a reply. "Storm Hawk One, this is Proud Eagle. I am receiving you, over. Please report on the status of your mission."

The pilot spoke quickly and precisely. "We flew over the Quest compound as instructed and took up our positions. All of our units fired all missiles on the main house, and the target has been flattened. There were no visible survivors."

Chuckling came over the channel. "Excellent. What about the lighthouse, is it intact?"

"Per your orders sir, the lighthouse has remained standing," the pilot replied calmly, "the dampening field that you have supplied us with is doing its job – we have not been followed in the air nor has anyone tried to contact us."

Laughter came through this time. "Excellent, Storm Hawk One. You and your squadron will receive a bonus for this. Return to base and await further orders. Proud Eagle out."

As the communication channel cleared, the lead pilot smirked. How easy was it to strike out of nowhere, attacking a target in Maine of all places? The pilot put the thought quickly out of his mind. He had no need of further worries since his part of the mission was over.

Now the rest of their plan all depended on the computer inside the lighthouse.

--

_One hour later -_

Everything that Jessie Bannon knew and loved was gone.

The main house of the Quest compound was a burning, smoldering mass of rubble, her family and friends destroyed. She couldn't help but feel a cold numbing dread settle over her - if she hadn't stayed behind at school for a makeup test that day and arrived home late, she would have probably been in there with them.

By the time she had arrived home on her bicycle, the fire department had put out most of the fire, but had also found five charred bodies in the house, based on the sight of the coroner's van and various cop cars and unmarked cars surrounding the main entrance to the compound. Jessie struggled to hold herself together as she watched from her vantage point behind a group of gawkers who had apparently come out to witness the aftermath of the destruction. The tale-tale body bags were slowly wheeled out one by one to the van. Jessie struggled to hold herself together as she had counted five body bags and realized with a sinking feeling that even their housekeeper hadn't been able to escape the destruction.

Silent tears ran down cheeks unchecked as she watched the coroner and his team finish their work quickly. Uniformed officers and men in suits surrounded the team as they closed the doors to their van and prepared to drive off. Jessie shook her head silently as anger threatened to overshadow her grief. Thoughts were going through her mind crazily, but one point stood out – something was seriously out of place here, and she was hell bound and determined to find out what had happened.

There were two policemen guarding the main gate, so she left her bike by the edge of the main gate and slipped onto the main grounds when their backs were turned addressing a small crowd of onlookers that had also amassed nearby. Since she knew almost all of the grounds like the back of her hand, it was easy for her to duck in behind what was left of the shrubs and fence, and get in to where the main authorities were.

Numerous firemen were still on the scene, trying to douse the last smoldering embers from where the main house had once stood. The lighthouse from her vantage point looked strangely unscathed, which initially puzzled her all the more. Jessie tried reasoning out what could have happened when she heard a stern authoritative voice behind her.

"Miss, you shouldn't be here!"

She turned around quickly to find that she had backed into a male uniformed officer. He looked angry and ready to kick her out on the spot. Jessie thought as quickly as she could. If she was going to get to the bottom of this, she needed all of the help she could get, and began to plead. "Officer, I knew the people in this house. Please, what happened to them?"

The officer's scowl was then replaced with one of sympathy. "I'm sorry miss. I know you are concerned about what happened and all, but this explosion has claimed the lives of five people that were home. This scene still isn't safe. You could get hurt by debris if you stick around." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a business card. "Come by the station in the morning, and maybe we can get to the bottom of this."

Her anger and grief returned in full force, and Jessie struggled to maintain her composure. She had even recognized the man as a regular patrolman that normally patrolled the neighborhood around the Quest compound and was shocked that the man didn't even recognize her. To be polite, Jessie pasted a smile on her face and took the card, stuffing it in the pocket of her jeans. "Thank you anyway, officer. I have to go."

She headed back towards the main gate as fresh tears fell from her eyes. _Well, that went over well._

Jessie had all but decided that she wasn't going to receive any help from the authorities. They had seemed more concerned about cleaning everything up than investigating and asking questions. Well fine, if they weren't going to do anything about it, then she sure as hell would.

The question was what could one sixteen year old girl do all alone?

Indecision and grief marred her thinking until she remembered an adventure that she and Jonny Quest had had not too long ago. It had nearly been the end of the world, but thanks to the program they had used in Quest world, they had been able to set everything right again.

Did that program still exist? It had been full of glitches at best when they used it, but they were able to set things back on the right course. Much of their computer equipment had been damaged during that journey. Jessie had also remembered Dr. Quest's video message to Jonny, and the reason that Dr. Quest had put away the program in the first place. Would going back be for her personal gain?

As she walked to her bike lost in thought, Jessie heard a couple of people talking amongst themselves within the small crowd of gawkers that had accumulated to the side of the main gate.

"There were four of them-"

"Helicopters shooting missiles, it was terrible!"

"Those poor people never stood a chance."

Her thoughts turned to their comments. Considering that the main house would be attacked and they left the lighthouse unscathed? It was more than a possibility that they knew what was contained in the lighthouse. In fact, the precision of the attack on reaffirmed her belief that they would be back once the authorities were done with the place.

Running to get her bike, Jessie went to find a hiding because judging by the scope of the crazy plan developing in her mind, the cover of night would definitely be needed.

Night crept up before she knew it, and she had grown stiff waiting for it. From her vantage point in the surrounding trees just outside the compound, she risked a glance out, and noted that all of the rescue vehicles had left, and the scene was wrapped with police crime scene tape.

Police? Hah, what little good they would do. Considering the description of the helicopters that had taken out the compound, there was a serious threat looming. Jessie rode her bike back to the main gate, then got off and ran. It took longer than she expected due to the amount of debris, but Jessie finally made her way around and onto the path to the lighthouse.

Moment's later when Jessie opened the door to the lighthouse and stepped inside, she could almost feel like things were normal, and at any point Jonny or Hadji would come and-

She stopped herself before she could slide into another wave of sorrow. Jessie reassured herself that her plan was sound, there was no harm in trying it, and that was what she kept telling herself.

She found the computers to be in perfect shape, and said a silent prayer of thanks to Dr. Quest, who thought to house most of IRIS' systems in the lighthouse. Jessie sat down at the main terminal and first programmed what was left of the security system to provide as much protection against intruders as she could. In the next few hours, she would be too busy to protect herself, and the more barriers between her and her enemy, the better.

Time now for the search that she prayed would succeed. She spoke quickly. "IRIS, find program 'Rachel'."

"Working," Came the curt reply. Precious seconds passed before IRIS returned with the answer she had hoped to hear. "Program found. Shall I display?"

_Yes!_ Her fingers worked furiously, bringing up the program and its parameters. From what Jessie could tell, the programming seemed intact, and that was all she could hope for. After programming some automated parameters that hopefully would take the place of a real monitor, she quickly grabbed for a visor disc and placed it quickly over her ear.

Jessie ran over to one of the main seats in front of the Quest world monitors and sat down. The monitors began a silent countdown as her visor activated, sending an arc of brilliant green light across her eyes.

Now that time was here, Jessie fought back a wave of nervousness. Now wasn't the time for regret - she had nothing to come back to anyway.

It was time to finalize her journey. She spoke the words to activate the monitor programming that she had just put into IRIS. "Quest world, Logon! Subject, Jessie Bannon, going hot!"

The monitors counted down...

:03

:02

:01

and Jessie Bannon was then transported into Quest world.

She materialized on the familiar green and black of the Quest world domain. Clad in her cyber suit, she could only hope that she wouldn't stand out too badly in the time period she was going into.

Jessie had no idea why the Quest compound was attacked, and she had initially wondered how far back to go. As a precaution, she programmed two points in time, and she decided to try the first one, forty-eight hours before the compound was attacked. "Iris, activate program Jessie one."

She waited as IRIS complied, materializing a hover board and a large machine that looked like a power generator on steroids.

Once the machine materialized, it emitted three tachyon beams that converged at a single point. Her portal materialized in a brilliant square flash of light. Jessie hopped onto the hover board, and took a long look at her surroundings.

_Well, here goes everything._

And with that last torturous thought, Jessie took off into the square of light and vanished.

To be continued...

--

_1/4/08 – My friends, this is what we call a do-over. This first chapter has been edited in an effort to bring a little bit more suspense and emotion into the story, and I am doing this particular chapter edit on my own. _

_My thanks go out to Goddess Evie and Sigokat. Their pep talk helped me to take a fresh look at this story, and maybe save it from a fate of mediocrity. As always, I leave that judgment in your hands, my readers. Now, to send chapter five to Goddess Evie for the edit and read-through. ;)_


	2. Contact

**Quest through Time**

By Time Guardian

_Chapter 2 - Contact_

48 Hours ago, Lighthouse Point –

The dragon that stood before Jonny and Jessie towered higher than the castle that it guarded. The dragon's metallic scales glistened in the light, and with a mighty bellow, it shot out a length of flame that fell just inches short of where Jonny and Jessie stood on their hover boards. They were testing the latest game Jonny had programmed for Quest World and, so far, Jessie Bannon was impressed. She watched in fascination as a computer generated player rode up on a hover board, shield in hand, and did it's best to avoid the dragon's flame and its massive claws. It was only partly successful - it managed to evade the dragon's slow arms-but those powerful fire blasts turned the computer player into cyberdust.

Jessie hated to admit to her blonde friend that she was impressed, but this time she couldn't avoid it. "Jonny, you programmed this?"

Jonny smirked, a slightly arrogant gesture at the moment. "With a little help from Hadji, yeah. After that mess we had with MegaQuest, I figured we could use a game that all of us could play and be guaranteed of no intrusions. Besides, I figured you'd like the setting, considering how much you love those fairy tales of yours."

Jessie chose to ignore the stab at her fascination. "So? Are we going to play or not?"

Jonny bowed slightly, gesturing to the dragon with one outstretched arm, offering her first crack at the game. "You go first. Since I programmed the game, it's only fair."

Jessie shook her head wryly, rolling her eyes. "How chivalrous of you," she commented sarcastically, "Where do I begin?"

"Lift your wrist. Your weapons options will be available from controls on the watch that you're now wearing."

She did as Jonny had instructed and found that what looked like a watch had appeared on her wrist. Touching the controls on the watch, Jessie found that her weapon choices were limited. -_Let's see, Bow and Arrow, Dual Swords, and- a bucket of water?-_

Glancing up to consider the massive dragon before her, Jessie asked. "Ok, so I need to get by this dragon, that's a given, but what's the prize?"

Jonny grinned and pointed high above the castle walls. "The golden chalice, of course."

Looking in the direction Jonny indicated, she could just make out a glint of what looked like a golden object hovering high above the castle. "Ok then, here goes."

Jessie cycled through the weapon options on her watch once again before deciding on the dual swords. Two glowing, curved swords appeared in her hands, and she twirled them once to get an idea of their heft and balance. Taking a deep breath and committing to memory the placement of the chalice, she took off towards her prize.

Jonny Quest shook his head as he watched Jessie head directly towards the goblet. Given the choice in weapons and her talent, he wagered that she'd last five minutes at least.

Exactly five minutes later and with a yell of surprise, Jessie quickly fell towards the castle below, her hover board an unfortunate victim of the dragon's fire.

Seconds later, the world around the both of them slowed to a stop. Jonny could hear and see static coming through the game, then his field of vision turned a brilliant green as he was abruptly booted from the game. Apparently, Jessie had received the same treatment, because when his visor deactivated he saw Jessie get up from her chair with a bewildered look on her face.

Standing up quickly, Jonny removed his visor disc and dropped it to his chair. "Hey Hadji, what happened?"

Hadji Singh sat at the monitoring station for Quest World and after a few moments of checking code and making a few calculations, shook his head in confusion. "I am not sure. There was interference of some kind. IRIS interpreted it as something that could compromise Quest World and your program, and so terminated the game."

Concerned, Jonny walked over to double-check what Hadji was looking at. On the face of it, Hadji was right, but whatever the interference was, it had just as quickly disappeared. The readings from the monitoring computer were now reporting that all was normal. "It wasn't a network intrusion, was it?"

Hadji shook his head. "No. Whatever the interference was, it looked to have come from an outside source. From what I could tell, the readings indicate that there was no attempt at a network intrusion."

"Okay, Hadj, I'll mention this to dad over dinner. He might not be too concerned since the other systems weren't affected, but he may want to run a systems sweep." Something about all of this still bothered Jonny, but it would have to wait. Dinner and a multitude of school assignments were waiting for him, none of which could be put off any longer.

Hadji stood, stretching and checking the digital readout for the current time. "One of these days I will learn to leave you two at your work. It is dinnertime and I am in need of nourishment before I finish the homework that I put off for your supposed one hour of game research, Jonny."

"Hadji, you worry too much," Jonny declared. "Tell you what, why don't you go ahead and go back to the house. Jessie and I'll finish up here and meet you there."

Hadji raised an eyebrow. "Are you certain?"

Jessie laughed. "I wouldn't question that deal if I were you, Hadji. The last time Jonny offered to clean the lab, cavemen were just getting around to learning more than one syllable."

Shaking his head but smiling, Hadji headed out of the lab and downstairs towards the exit. There were just some days when it wasn't worth trying to figure out those two.

* * *

After Hadji left, Jonny and Jessie set to putting the lab to rights again. Jessie shut down the monitoring computer and put the papers Jonny had been scribbling game notes on away in a nearby drawer. They were just about done straightening up, but there was something eating away at her curiosity. She paused and turned to look at Jonny. "So what was the solution?"

"Hmm?" Jonny replied with a glance at her over his shoulder.

"The game! I never got a chance to try any other solutions. Considering the trouble, it might be a while before we get another chance, so I want to know: How do you beat the dragon?"

Jonny was grinning again as he grabbed the visor discs that they had used from the chairs and laid them on the nearby table. "Do you really want to know?"

He could be so annoying when he was that smug. Jessie nearly decided to drop the subject, but her curiosity won out in the end. "Yes, now spill it before I tell your father what you were working on the other night, instead of your homework."

The remark hit home, and Jonny winced mockingly. "Ouch, blackmail is so unlike you, Miss Bannon. Okay, I'll tell, but you might not like it, considering the initial path you chose."

Jessie merely raised an expectant eyebrow for him, signaling that she wanted the answer anyway.

Jonny shrugged at her and said, "You know how you were trying to fight the dragon off with the dual swords all the while going after that chalice?"

Jessie was quickly growing impatient. "Yes, and?"

Jonny laughed. "Don't rush me! Before I tell the secret, let me ask you a question: What did you think about the bucket of water?"

"I didn't. I thought it was a stupid weapon and that you were just trying to be funny."

Laughter was Jonny's only reply, and Jessie shot him a dirty look. She had her answer, but she wasn't buying it.

"That doesn't make any sense. How could a bucket of water be a weapon?"

Jonny laughed at her apparent confusion. "Hello, did you notice the size and speed of that dragon? If you had thought to improvise, you could use the water to disarm his bad breath, and fly around the dragon's grasp to obtain the chalice." Knowing he was in trouble for his smart alec attitude, Jonny grabbed his jacket and ran for the stairs to the bottom floor of the light house, calling a slightly taunting, "See you back at the house for dinner!" over his shoulder as he disappeared down the steps.

Jessie's mind reeled from his accusation as she stood blinking at where he had just left. –_Couldn't improvise? I can improvise with the best of them, Hotshot. Just wait until I get you back in that game Jonny Quest, then we'll see who can improvise._

With that silent promise, she rushed down the stairs, grabbing her own jacket and throwing it around her shoulders, and headed out the door herself. By the time Jessie started down the path towards the main house, Jonny was already out of sight. She fumed as she walked down the path from the lighthouse. Not only had he insulted her, but now he didn't even have the decency to wait for her? -_Oh boy, just wait until our next Quest World session._

The sun was setting, and with the light quickly diminishing, the solar outdoor lights placed along the path began to turn on. Jessie's mind wandered as the walk helped to soothe her ire at her best friend. The amount of homework she had wasn't too bad, but she did have one test tomorrow to study for. As her thoughts ambled on her pace slowed, and she looked out over the water, admiring the way it looked with the last of the sunlight glinting off its now dark surface.

Something caught her eye, abruptly pulling her from her musings, and she stopped to pay closer attention to her surroundings. She knew the compound grounds, especially the trail between the main house and the lighthouse, intimately and Jessie strained to hear any sounds around her that might give the intruder away, but the only one that seemed to stand out was the crashing of waves against the shoreline. When there was nothing for a very long time, she shrugged and decided she was just jumpy after battling Jonny's dragon. -_Great, now along with losing the game, I'm also losing my mind_.-

Jessie resumed her walk towards the house, but didn't let herself get lost in thought as she had before. She paid more attention to her surroundings as she continued down the path. She was pretty sure her mind was just playing tricks on her after her game with Jonny, but that was when Jessie saw something again. This time for sure and whatever it was, it was flying, it was fast, and whoever or whatever it was - it had her face.

* * *

Jonny Quest stood in front of the French doors and watched the path for Jessie to appear again. By all rights Jessie should have been close behind him, but she had yet to appear and Jonny was starting to worry. He contemplated going back up the path after her when he finally caught sight of her She was running full speed toward the house and glancing over her shoulder.

"Jonny!"

He frowned. Jessie normally was the last one that would be creeped out by any situation, but judging by the way her face looked, something had obviously scared her. Jonny stepped forward, and grabbed Jessie by the shoulders to slow her down before she bowled him over. "Jessie, what's wrong?"

Jonny stared worriedly into her eyes as Jessie caught her breath and then hitched a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to an indistinct shape in the darkness behind her.

"Jonny-"

He stared at where she was pointing, and had to admit, Jessie had a good reason to be so freaked.

There on the path, slowly hovering towards them stood Jessie - or someone who looked like Jessie. This Jessie looked like she was wearing a cyber suit, which meant that she had to have stepped through from Quest World, but that still left quite a few unanswered questions.

As the Cyber-Jessie floated into range, Jonny stepped in front of Jessie and tried to interrogate the figure in front of them. "What are you doing here? Who are you? Did Surd or Rage send you?"

If he was expecting a revelation, he didn't get it. Instead, the Jessie that hovered just a foot or so in front of him landed and stepped off of her hover board. In the glow of the outdoor lights, Jonny could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She walked towards him and Jonny tensed, unsure of what would happen next.

With a strangled sob, Cyber-Jessie launched herself into Jonny's arms.

* * *

Present Day, Washington DC –

Phil Corbin sat at his office desk with his head in his hands. In all of his years with Intelligence One, he had never experienced such a profound loss, and it infuriated him to no end. No matter how much he looked at it, the words on the main incident report refused to change from the awful truth: Race Bannon and Dr. Quest were dead, along with Jonny and Hadji, two innocent kids that shouldn't be dead.

"Damnit!" Phil growled as he slammed his hands hard against his desk. The stinging sensation reverberated throughout his arms, and it served to jolt Phil out of the haze he had been in since he had received that blasted report.

It had only been an hour since Phil had received notification that the Quest Compound had not only been attacked, but destroyed and he wanted to curse the stars, curse the police, and most of all curse the FBI.

Intelligence One was flagged as the first ones to be notified whenever any incidents involving the Quests arose. Phil should have been the first to know and the first on the scene, but those FBI jerks liked to make themselves feel important and useful.

He looked at the file folder sitting beside the incident report on his desk-file 0-37-with an overwhelming sense of regret. It had been the same file that he had handed to Agent Bannon on that fateful day when he had first escorted Race to meet the Quests for the first time.

-I _am sorry, my friend - sorry I got you into this whole mess._ –

The thing that didn't make much sense was that Jessie Bannon was missing. Based upon the reports he had received only minutes ago from the head FBI Agent in charge, the Policemen that had been on guard duty in cooperation with the FBI had seen Jessie, but had not realized it until after the fact. The authorities at the scene had merely counted bodies and immediately assumed that Jessie had been killed along with her family. No one had even thought twice that the housekeeper Mrs. Evans had been among the casualties. Corbin wasn't sure how they had finally figured out that Jessie wasn't among the dead, but that didn't really matter.

How they could miss a girl with brilliant red hair like that was anyone's guess, but Phil wasn't about to let anything else slip through the cracks. Considering that she was Race's daughter, Phil knew that Race would have infused her with a sense of resourcefulness and ingenuity that would have been second only to Race himself. That could mean only mean two possibilities: Jessie was either going to try to get revenge on the people who did this, or she was going to try and fix what happened. Either possibility left a bad taste in Phil's mouth, not to mention the dismal duty of trying to explain to Jessie's mother why her daughter was still unaccounted for.

Regardless of what happened, the investigation now, finally, fell to him. He quickly threw the amassed material regarding the event into a briefcase, closed it and hauled himself out the door of his office.

He had a plane to catch.

* * *

_You might notice a slight style change here. The reason for this is that I have asked for and am receiving the services of a beta reader. Thank you Goddess Evie! There are explanations and emotional fallout coming next chapter, all of which will come as soon as I get started on the next chapter (which will be soon, I promise!). _


	3. Double Trouble

**_Quest through Time  
_**by Time Guardian

Chapter 3 – Double Trouble

_48 Hours ago, Quest Compound-_

Dr. Quest added the last touches to the work that he was typing up on the computer in the library. One of his old friends from the FBI had come to him with a code that their organization could not crack. Seemingly a simple one-page message, the paper was filled with letters, numbers, and symbols, some of which Dr. Quest had never seen before.

There was something about all of this that troubled Dr. Quest, and if it had not been a friend asking the favor, he probably would have turned down the offer in a heartbeat. As it was, he had reluctantly accepted the document on the condition that he tell no one what he was working on and that he would be contacted in a week to check on his progress.

_I thought I left all of this cloak and dagger stuff behind_, he thought grimly.

He scanned a copy of the coded document into the computer system and after beginning a few lines of code for an algorithm that would help to decipher the jumbled message, Dr. Quest saved and password protected his work before shutting down the terminal.

Moments later, a chime sounded from around him, and then IRIS spoke. "Fifteen minutes until dinner, Dr. Quest."

He smiled. For once he had stopped working way before dinner – Jonny would be amazed. Dr. Quest stood while rubbing his tired eyes and then stretched his arms wide before acknowledging the computerized alert. "Thank you, IRIS."

"You are welcome," IRIS replied curtly.

Dr. Quest turned off the room light and walked out of the library. It had been a while since he had the chance to crack a code like this, and was sure that this one had a weakness. Finding that weakness would be the key, but this was one of those types of problems where a hot meal and a goods night's sleep would be a welcome break from the jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols.

As he walked out from the hallway into the living room, he noticed Jonny and Jessie just outside the French doors. Dr. Quest smiled as he realized that they were having a conversation, and judging by their body language, it looked like they were in another one of their infamous debates, making him wonder when they would ever learn to get along.

Crossing the living room, Dr, Quest moved to go into the kitchen when he looked outside the French doors again and thought he saw a second Jessie outside. He stopped for only a second, and then became distracted by a whiff of delicious food from the kitchen. Dr. Quest shook his head in amusement and dismissed his temporary lapse in vision to hunger. Pushing the swinging door into the kitchen, Dr. Quest saw that Mrs. Evans was putting the finishing touches on the evening meal and Race Bannon was making quick work of the dining room table, laying out silverware and napkins for each of them.

He looked up at Dr. Quest's arrival and grinned. "Well, and what do we owe the pleasure of your presence to, Benton? Got tired of staring at a computer screen?"

"Something like that," Dr. Quest admitted. He moved to the table and took a seat at the head of the table. "The kids should be here in a few minutes. They were right outside when I last saw them, having a 'discussion' by the looks of it."

"Figures they would drag their feet," Race replied good-naturedly. "You would think that the fate of the world rested on what they talk about, the way they go at it and all."

* * *

Jonny Quest was facing a bad case of double trouble and he knew it. 

Cyber-Jessie, who still had him wrapped in a tight hug, continued to sob heavily into his shoulder.

The Jessie that he knew was getting increasingly angrier by the minute. Her shout was in his ear and made it ring for a moment. "Let go, you faker!"

Jonny felt a shove, and moments later saw that Cyber-Jessie was tumbling away from him.

Tumbling backwards, Cyber-Jessie sat down hard on her butt on the path in front of Jonny and herself. Surprise replaced the sorrow on her face, and as she looked at herself with wide eyes she knew she had to think fast. In all of her impetuousness, Cyber-Jessie didn't anticipate having to convince her past self of her true identity. _What a headache I am._

She couldn't blame, herself, though. Had she been the one faced with a future version of herself, she'd have been just as suspicious and untrusting. Taking a deep breath, Cyber-Jessie decided on the one thing that she couldn't deny.

Her voice sounded tiny even to her, but she said what she needed to say, gaining confidence as she forged forward. "When I – _you_ were five years old, mom brought you on one of her digs in Peru. Dad wasn't there, and mom was too busy to pay attention, so you wondered off into the ruins. You climbed inside one of the temples and found a pit containing a stone. A stone so pretty that you just had to have it. You tried to reach down for it-"

_Oh my God._

Listening in shock from where she still stood behind Jonny, Jessie paled and her eyes grew wider and wider as her double recounted the story that she had not even told her dad. With a reluctant tremble in her voice, she finished the story that her double had started. "I reached into the pit and lost my balance. I fell in, breaking my arm. I never did find that stone, so when mom found me, I just told her that I slipped."

Cyber-Jessie got to her feet and stared at her coolly and knowingly. "You had to keep your pride, even at that age."

This was impossible. Of course, Jessie had seen many incredible things while she had been living with the Quests, but this – there were no words. Denial continued to course through her as Jessie retorted. "You- you can't be here! Doesn't this break some sort of time travel law or something?" _  
_

Jonny tried to butt in. "Excuse me, but can I say something-"

He was duly rebuked by both Jessie's turning on him and shouting. "NO!"

* * *

Race had finished setting the table, then stopped what he was doing for a moment as he heard the raised voices outside. He smiled as he shook his head. "It sounds like Jessie is having trouble getting her point across again. Five bucks says that we will be sorting out another one of their arguments over dinner." 

Dr. Quest laughed in reply. "You know I never take a bet like that anymore. I dare say our kids have become more predictable every day."

"I dunno, Benton, one of these days they just might surprise us," Race countered.

* * *

Jonny Quest shook his head in disbelief. _This is insane. Now I'm getting her attitude in stereo._

Shaking off the temptation to flee for his very life, Jonny tried to get his point across again to both Jessie's. "Look, whether or not this is truly Jessie from the future, we have a problem. Dinner starts in about fifteen minutes, and unless either of you want to explain to either of our dads why you're here over dinner conversation, we better find a way to sneak you in."

Cyber-Jessie looked as if she was ready to cry again, and that further strengthened Jonny's resolve. "Okay, we're sneaking her in to your room, Jessie. Everyone else should be in the kitchen by now. If we take the main stairs quietly, we shouldn't attract too much attention. Let's go."

Both Jessie's reluctantly followed Jonny around to the front of the house and inside. The Jessie from the future trailed closely behind Jonny followed by her past self bringing up the rear. Apparently, the Jessie of this time still didn't trust herself from the future. When they entered the foyer and living room were quiet, just as Jonny had figured, and soon they had made their way up the stairs and into Jessie's room.

Two sets of green eyes watched as Jonny carefully closed the door and let out a sigh of relief. Jessie's past self offered her twin a seat on the bed while she sat in the chair at her computer desk.

After staring at the past and future Jessies, Jonny began to pace as his mind raced to grasp the whole situation. Suddenly striking upon an idea, he began to pace faster as it grew and he quickly explained it to both Jessies. "Okay, we need to buy some time. I can go downstairs saying that you," he looked at Jessie at the computer desk," are helping me with my homework and so we'll just be eating up here."

The Jessie from the past, the one from his own time, rolled her eyes. "Yeah, considering we did the same thing just last week, I think they'll believe you, Jonny.."

As the door closed behind Jonny, Cyber-Jessie looked around the room that had been her home for the past few months. Memories washed over her like a fresh rainstorm, and they didn't do her emotions any good. They especially weren't helped by her double's obvious question. "Why did you come back?"

_That is the loaded question of the decade._ Cyber-Jessie turned to look at her past self. This was one tale that was going to be hard to swallow.

Watching her own green eyed gaze reflected back at her laced with grief, Jessie tried to be the model of patience, but when Cyber-Jessie remained especially quiet, she couldn't help but try to get the ball rolling again. "The only time I remember time traveling was when Ezekiel Rage planted a thermal-nuclear device below the Earth's crust and threatened to tear the whole planet apart. Dr. Quest even made a taped message for Jonny explaining how he didn't want the program to be used for personal gain, but that if was for the greater good-"

She broke off as she watched Cyber-Jessie tremble with every word that she uttered.

Getting up from her seat, she kneeled in front of her future self. Trying to keep her voice neutral, Jessie asked, "It was for the greater good, wasn't it? Why did you come alone? Was there no one else that could come?"

Cyber-Jessie grabbed her past self's shoulders and shook her hard. Her voice was borderline frantic. "Greater good? Only if you call the Quest Compound being destroyed a good reason to come back. Everyone is dead forty-eight hours from now; all except you. Someone blew up the house and left the lighthouse intact. Someone did this deliberately, and I came back to find out who."

Her eyes widened, and the Jessie of the present was left speechless at the news.

A voice from the door distracted Jessie from her reaction. "Jessie, I-"

Both Jessies' heads whipped around as her door opened. She had recognized Hadji's voice and knew she needed to prevent him from entering, but everything had happened too quickly and before they knew it, the damage was done.

Her bedroom door was open and Hadji just stood there, eyes wide, and mouth slightly open.

* * *

_Present day, en route to Maine_

Phil Corbin sat in relative isolation on the Intelligence One aircraft as he read and reread the material that he had taken with him. Since he couldn't change the past, he did his best to focus on the investigation at hand. He would see the murderers of Race Bannon and the Quests avenged in his own way.

What he was puzzling over was the apparent lack of motive. Moments before he had called in a few favors between agencies and shook them down for all they were worth in one of the more dubious conference calls he had ever participated in. None of them knew of or would admit to anything that Dr. Quest was working on, but something in the back of Phil's mind told the I-1 agent that someone on that call had been less than truthful. Still, by the time the call had ended, nobody had given themselves up, forcing him to start from square one.

Now his only hope was that the computer systems for the compound were still intact. The FBI agents had reported that the lighthouse on the compound grounds were not only intact, but remained wholly untouched by whatever had decimated the main house and its occupants. Dr. Quest had also given Phil a tour of the lighthouse on his property at one point, and he remembered that most of the computer systems were housed there. Maybe the clues that he was looking for would be there.

The pilot was ordered to land at the closest private airstrip near the property, which should put him only a few miles away from the compound. By Phil's calculations, their landing would be within the hour. Pushing his paperwork to the side, Phil sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. Fatigue was trying to catch up with him, but he couldn't stop now. There were too many unanswered questions. With no solid leads on who would want Dr. Quest and his family dead, conspiracy theories were even looking good.

This was one of those times that Phil felt more like he was behind the eight ball than ever before. His mind raced with further possibilities, but eventually his fatigue won out and soon Phil felt himself slip reluctantly into the darkness of sleep.

* * *

_My thanks to Godess Evie once again for the read-through and edit. More emotional fallout and plans are going to be made next chapter. Things are getting a little busy here, but I will get it out as soon as I can._ :) 


	4. Moment of Truth

_**Quest through Time  
**__By Time Guardian_

_Chapter 4 – Moment of Truth_

48 Hours ago, Quest Compound

Jonny quickly descended the stairs to the ground floor. This night had been full of surprises so far, and he didn't want to miss out on any of it. At the bottom of the steps he made a beeline for the kitchen and entered quickly, encountering his dad, Race and Mrs. Evans who were having a lighthearted conversation. The housekeeper put the finishing touches on what she was working on over the stove as she laughed at something his dad or Race had said, and turned to look at the blond haired teen. "Well now, at least one of you managed to show up. Sit down Jonny, and I'll fix you a plate."

Jonny pasted on his best smile and shook his head. For the moment at least, this night had to look as normal as any other. "Ah, no can do, Mrs. Evans. Actually, I'm in a pretty bad bind with my homework, and Jessie said she'd help me with it. The whole thing promises to be pretty bad, so I was hoping that we could eat up in her room."

"Again?" His father asked suspiciously. Dr. Quest stood from where he had been sitting at the dining room table. "Jonny, is there anything I could help with? I mean-"

Jonny cut off his dad before he could go any further. It figured his dad would be worried. There had already been one parent-teacher conference this year. Jonny remembered the infamous words his teacher had spoken - _gifted but lacks focus_. The last thing he needed right now was his dad asking questions that weren't ready to be answered. "No-No dad," he protested, "Jessie aced this class last semester, so we'll be okay, but I'll call if I need you."

Jonny stood his ground for a few more moments until his father reluctantly sat back down. "Ok, but promise me that you'll come to me if you encounter any trouble?" he requested sternly. "And tell Jessie this doesn't get her off doing her own homework," Race added with a stern look of his own as he helped himself to a plate of food.

Jonny nodded quickly, relieved that he wouldn't have to explain himself any further. He waited patiently, though nervously, as Mrs. Evans loaded a large plate with slices of steak and scoops of at least three different vegetables. "Now, I want you two to eat," she chided him. "If you want the brain power to get that homework done, you need nourishment."

Mrs. Evans then grabbed for some forks and knives, wrapped them in a couple of linen napkins, and laid them on the side of the plate before handing it off to Jonny. "There you go."

Jonny smiled. "Thank you Mrs. Evans!" He turned and carefully walked out of the kitchen.

"Be careful and don't make a mess!" he heard Mrs. Evans call after him as he practically ran back to Jessie's room once he felt he was safe.

One challenge down, one to go. It was time to find out why cyber-Jessie - the future Jessie - was here in the past. If he knew Jessie at all, she probably already had her future self explaining what had happened to bring her here. It unsettled him to a certain degree that she had come alone. If something had happened that took out his family, he was going to find out one way or another what happened so they could put a stop to it.

Halfway up the stairs, Jonny noticed that Hadji was making was way to Jessie's room. His footsteps quickened and he suddenly wished he had said he and Jessie would eat later so that he wasn't laden down with a plate of food.

"Hadji!"

He spoke as loudly as he dared, his brother's name coming out in more of a hiss, but Hadji was apparently too far away to hear him. Jonny picked up the pace to try and catch Hadji before he opened the door, but he wasn't fast enough. As Jonny balanced the plate of food in his hands, he smoothly took the rest of the stairs until he was behind his brother. He could only imagine the look on Hadji's face as he stared into Jessie's room. "Uh, hey, Hadj. We, uh, have quite a bit of explaining to do," he said with a nervous chuckle.

Hadji turned to him, wide eyed. "I am seeing double."

If this situation hadn't already been crazy enough, Jonny would have laughed. It normally took something extremely unusual to ruffle Hadji's sensibilities and this qualified hands down. "There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this," Jonny assured. "And if you'll just step into Jessie's room, we'll tell it to you."

Hadji looked back at Jonny before looking again at the two Jessies. "This I must hear."

Jonny handed the plate of food to future Jessie. She looked at him for a moment as if confused. "Hungry?" he asked with a little smile. Future Jessie took the plate of food gingerly and took a few slow bites at first, but her appetite must have caught up with her because she was soon wolfing it down. Watching her made Jonny, Hadji and even the Jessie of their time that much more worried.

While she ate, Jonny and Jessie brought Hadji up to speed about what had transpired outside only moments before. Hadji sat on the floor in rapt attention. "Fascinating," he commented once they were done.

By the time their story was over, the second Jessie had eaten her fill and set the plate with the remains of the meal on the bed in beside her. The present Jessie stood up and from her vantage looked at them all. Her future counterpart had pulled herself into a tight ball on the bed, her legs drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped tightly around them. Her chin rested on her knees and present Jessie didn't think she looked much better even having eaten. Looking away from her future self, Jessie turned her gaze on her best friend. "My future self told me what happened."

She looked back at her exact copy. "We- I mean she witnessed the aftermath of an attack on the Quest compound. She was the only survivor, and the only reason she was able to come back using your dad's time travel program was that whoever attacked left the lighthouse alone."

Jonny shuddered at the matter-of-fact explanation. "And this doesn't bother you? She basically has said we all died."

She stared at him indignantly. "What the hell am I supposed to think? Until a half hour ago, I didn't think you could meet up with yourself in the past, and look what's happened."

"Stop!"

The two of them looked at future Jessie, who had pushed herself up off the bed to a standing position. She shook with anger and her eyes shone with unshed tears. "Look, if I had known it would take this long to convince you of what happened, I wouldn't have made contact, and would have just tried to stop these events myself. If you two really want to debate semantics, you could always open another time portal with IRIS. I can give you the exact coordinates, time, and date. Maybe if you two see the death and destruction that I have, then maybe you'll quit this damn bickering and come up with a plan like we always do!"

The rant left future Jessie's chest heaving, her face red from the effort. There was an awkward silence as Jonny and present Jessie stared at her, unsure of what to say.

It was Hadji that came to the rescue. Standing, he walked up to future Jessie and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. His words were soothing, and he kept his voice low. "You have seen more than anyone should have to see. It is we that should be thanking you. You have given us a second chance to see this threat though together."

Hadji's actions had the desired effect. The very upset red head relaxed into his embrace, wrapping an arm around his waist, and took long calming breaths. Jessie thought her future counterpart might actually cry, but the girl in Hadji's arms managed to keep her tears in check. Tentatively, carefully, Jonny stepped forward and spoke in a soft voice. "You're right. If there is any chance that we can avoid this fate, then we're gonna need a plan."

"How do we know it's not our efforts to find out what's going on that triggers this attack?" present Jessie protested, though kindly.

"You don't," future Jessie retorted, opening her eyes to look at herself with renewed anger. "I'm sorry I didn't come back with any more information for you, like it was Zin in the study with the knife or something. Wake up! How many times do I have to tell you that I came back on my own after seeing what I saw? There wasn't exactly time to investigate. If someone lay waste to the house but left the lighthouse standing, that means there's something there that's valuable and I'm taking a big risk here. Whoever wanted the lighthouse intact may be coming back tonight, so that didn't exactly lead to coherent thought on my part, okay?"

Hadji nodded understandingly, rubbing her back soothingly. "Then the lighthouse is where we should start. Where did your portal materialize?"

"The cliffside alongside the lighthouse," future Jessie replied, "Why?"

Hadji's eyes widened in understanding as he turned to Jonny. "So that's why IRIS interrupted our session. The tachyon portal must be interfering with Quest World operations."

Jonny reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, well, maybe it was only temporary. This is something we have to check out. Whatever this enemy wanted, I agree with Jessie," he nodded to the red head still encircled in Hadji's embrace, "They left the lighthouse standing for a reason."

Hadji rested his chin on Jessie's shoulder, deep in thought. "We could go back in and search IRIS' data banks to see if there is anything there out of the ordinary."

Both Jessie's piped up at the same time. "Hello! We're in the room, too!"

Jonny shook his head. This stereo thing was going to be hard to get used to. He thought hard. There had to have been something future Jessie had noticed. He directed his attention to her. "You've got to think. Was there anything unusual that you remember leading up to that day?"

Future Jessie stared at the ceiling for a few moments before replying. "No - nothing unusual. Dr. Quest was working on something secretive, I remember that, but he wouldn't say what and that's nothing new."

Jonny nodded in agreement. "True, but if that's the only thing going on then we need to consider that. Quest World hasn't necessarily been a private thing, but the only person whose come after it have been Surd and his flunkies. Okay, I think we've heard enough and held out for long enough. We need more information, and I think the only way we're going to get it is to bring our dads in on this."

Present Jessie looked at him with a questioning glance. "Are you sure?"

"Jess, the only way we're going to get to the bottom of this is to see what my dad could be working on. Even if it is so secretive like your future self remembers, maybe we can get a clue from the conversation. Besides, it's our only lead right now, and it can't hurt at this point. We'd know more than we do now," Jonny replied with determination.

It was future Jessie that spoke up next, but she cut herself off. "But what if-"

Jonny sighed. He was getting tired of the bickering. "What?"

Future Jessie stood before him looking worried, her gaze on her hands, which were fidgeting with one another. Hadji had finally let go of her again, and she shifted her weight between her feet.. "What if your dad objects? What if he sends me back and does nothing?"

Jonny shook his head decidedly. "That's not going to happen. The Jessie I know," he broke off as he glanced between both Jessies, "wouldn't make the type of stuff up that you described. Hadji is right though, for IRIS to work where we can figure out what is going on, we're going to need that Tachyon field gone. I think you've earned the right to see what's going on." He checked his watch. "Dad and Race should have finished dinner by now, so we better get downstairs. IRIS, locate dad."

"Dr. Quest is in the living room," the computer replied curtly.

Jonny then stood and opened Jessie's door. "Then we better get going – all of us."

As Hadji and both Jessies filed out of the room, the present Jessie stopped in front of him. "Thanks," she said genuinely.

"For what?" Jonny asked with surprise in his face and voice.

"For believing her- I mean me. I know that there's more to her story. It's just that everything sounded so suspicious, and she sounded so worried that she was doing this for selfish reasons."

Smiling, Jonny placed his hands on his best friend's shoulders. "Jess, you wouldn't have come back without a good reason, and that justifies the greater good any day. You shouldn't have had to question yourself like that in the first place, but I think the terror of seeing all of that happen probably scrambled her thinking. Now, I think that it is time to face the music. Neither of our dads would be too happy if we held this back."

Present Jessie quirked a smile. "Yeah. I just wonder what my dad will do when he sees double."

The two laughed together as they followed Hadji and future Jessie down the stairs.

--

Race looked up from where he had been sitting in the recliner as Benton came into the room and took a seat on the sofa. "You know Benton, I haven't heard a peep from the kids in over an hour. Maybe they have a handle on that homework that Jonny was worried about."

"Knowing our kids, that could be easier said than – done."

Race frowned at the hitch and looked up to find that Benton's eyes had widened, and he was staring down the hall towards the staircase. Race rose and moved to join Benton. When he followed his friend's gaze, he could feel his own jaw grow extremely slack.

The kids were coming down the stairs, there was no doubt about that, but there was an addition. When a second Jessie came downstairs clad in a cyber suit, words failed Race, and he struggled for a coherent thought. It wasn't until all four kids were standing beside him, the cyber suit clad Jessie watching him unsurely, that he finally found words. "Okay, I know we aren't having a mass hallucination or anything like that, so unless there's something Estella forgot to tell me about, someone better start explaining and pronto."

Benton nodded in agreement. At least this explained his apparent double vision when he had looked outside before dinner earlier. He glared at his son. "Agreed. Jonny, I assume this was the cause of the dinner up in Jessie's room?"

Jonny nodded. "Sorry dad, but this was sprung on us pretty quickly, and we wanted a feel for what happened before we came to you. " He motioned to future Jessie. "This Jessie is from the future. She came through using the time travel program you made."

Eyes widening, Benton started at his son in shock. "Program Rachel? You told me the program was used successfully, but why is she here, and all alone?"

For an answer, future Jessie stepped forward. She struggled to keep her emotions in check, but the sight of her father alive and well was starting to unravel them faster than she could draw them back in. Her voice quavered as she spoke, but she willed herself to say what she needed to.

"I'm afraid what I'm about to tell you might be hard to believe, but please, hear me out."

--

_The reason I had for the comment about Jonny telling his father that the program was successful was something I took from other people tackling the time travel concept – Benton and Race were out there in the real world when Jonny and Jessie changed the future from the fate Rage had planned for it, and I felt that they would probably not be aware that they asked the kids to use the program in the first place once the disastrous future had been averted. That was just a little bit of personal prerogative there._

_I'd like to thank Goddess Evie once again for the read-through and edit. As for the next chapter, well, I know what I want to happen, but I am still hammering out the concepts – dealing with two time lines isn't as easy as I thought it would be. I will be working on it as soon as I can._


	5. Confrontation

Chapter 5 – Confrontation

_The Past, Quest Compound-_

Future Jessie cleared her throat, and nervously clasped her hands behind her back. She hesitated, calling up the details of the afternoon two days from now in her mind. The act of remembering the events that had brought her to the past coupled with being surrounded by the family that had been so violently taken from her only a couple of days in the future made it harder and harder for her to hold her torturous emotions in check. Just looking up at her father, a tear slid down her cheek before she could even get a word out. Ashamed of herself for not even having the strength to explain everything to her dad and Dr. Quest, she buried her face in her hands as she began to weep finally for what she had witnessed, her shoulders shaking with the intensity of her sobs.

So much loneliness, so much desolation – everything washed over her and it nearly made her feel like she was drowning. Future Jessie had tried holding her sadness back by focusing on her determination and her anger at the current situation, but it wasn't enough.

Moments later, she was dimly aware of strong arms circling around her, and future Jessie found herself enclosed in the familiar warmth of a hug. She was afraid to open her eyes, to acknowledge that this moment was real, but when she caught a whiff of her father's after-shave, she knew.

Race Bannon was a man confused. Sure he had seen plenty of things in his life with Dr. Quest, but this had to rank high on the list of the weirdest ones. He felt powerless as he watched his daughter's twin falter before ever uttering any word of explanation. When she broke down emotionally, Race got to his feet. It felt like the right thing to do as he walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her and brought his daughter close to him in a tight hug -and he knew this girl was his daughter as much as the very nervous looking Jessie still wearing her school clothes and standing between Hadji and Jonny was. He still couldn't understand how there could be two Jessie's, but he knew one was just as real as the other, without any way of being able to explain how.

Race's heart nearly broke as he felt the Jessie in his arms tremble, her sobs now muffled against his shirt. He lightly stroked her back and nuzzled her cheek against her hair, staying silent. What could he say?

Jessie watched the scene unfold in front of her. Wide eyed, she finally realized just how much her future self had been through. The tears, the total breakdown - she personally knew it took a lot to upset her, and it was then that she decided that she was going to do everything in her power not to end up like this. Casting brief glances at Jonny and Hadji, she found that they both were watching the scene with rapt attention. Realizing that they were both waiting for the full explanation of what happened, she took a nervous breath and continued to watch the events unfold.

Eventually, as her father held and comforted her, future Jessie found her breathing evening out, and her trembling subsiding. She hadn't realized that she had held back so much, but the warmth of her father's arms had helped to ease her pain some. Reluctantly she pulled away from her father and made an effort to wipe the trail of tears from her cheeks. Her voice was low, but now future Jessie felt like she had the strength to tell her story.

Race looked into his daughter's green eyes, shining still from her torrent of tears, wordlessly confirming that she was okay. Future Jessie nodded at him. "I'm okay, now," her voice came out small, but sure. "Thanks, dad."

For a moment, she almost wasn't okay as she uttered that single three letter word, but she managed to keep her emotions in check so that she could finally tell her story to the two very patiently awaiting adults. Race stayed close and reluctantly prodded her to begin.

Future Jessie took a deep shuddering breath before she spoke. "Two days from now, someone is going to blow up the compound," she had to take another deep breath before she could utter the next phrase, "with all of you in it. I'm the only who survives."

It was the quick version, but she hoped it would get her father and Dr. Quest's attention. She stared at them both as they soaked in her statement, waiting for any kind of reaction.

It was Benton who recovered from his shock first. "Come, tell us everything," he requested as he led her into the living room and seated her in his own favorite wing chair. Everyone else followed, taking seats around the room. Race took the chair nearest to his daughter from the future.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know all the details of what happened, but I'll tell you what I do know."

"It's okay, Ponchita. Take your time and try to remember everything," Race voiced encouragement to the still very distraught girl.

After one last nervous breath, future Jessie plunged into her story. Despite it having been hours ago, she couldn't help but shudder as she described the sight of seeing their bodies wheeled out of what remained of the compound and the overheard discovery about the helicopters.

"The strangest thing about all of this," she finally noted, "was that the lighthouse remained standing. I wanted to find out what happened and remembered your time travel program, Dr. Quest. That's the main reason I'm here now."

Dr. Quest was shocked to say the least. Someone or some organization had gone to great lengths to attack his home and kill people-his very own family. It was a little much to take in.

He quickly tried to organize his thoughts. If there was any hope to avert this fate, they needed to know as much as they could. "So, the people that mentioned the helicopters, did they describe them?"

Future Jessie shook her head.

Dr. Quest took in a thoughtful breath as his brain organized what she had told him so far. "In the time that you remember, did anything out of the ordinary happen in the house or with us before this – attack happened?"

"The only thing I remember was hearing you talk about a project, Dr. Quest," she replied. "It was supposedly top secret."

Alarm bells went off in his head. The only top secret project that he was working on now was breaking that code for his friend in the FBI. It couldn't be – and yet, if this was going to put his family in jeopardy, then someone was going to have to start explaining themselves. The makings of a tenuous plan of action went through his mind. "Okay, I think this is all we're going to be able to find out for now, and I have to check out a few things on my own, but there are other things that need to be done." He then addressed future Jessie. "First, you are going to have to go back to your current time."

Jonny's spirits sank. This was the very thing that he'd promised Jessie wouldn't happen. Angrily he stepped forward, intent on setting his father straight. "Weren't you listening to her? She came back in time for a reason."

His father groaned. "Jonny-"

Jonny risked cutting him off. "You heard it yourself. We're going to get blown up in less than forty-eight hours, dad."

Shaking his head, Dr. Quest turned to future Jessie. "The nature of my work is highly classified. I will do what I can to check it out and make sure that there's nothing there that could feasibly harm us, but in the meantime you have to get back to your own time."

Bewildered, future Jessie looked ready to cry again. "But-"

Race moved closer to her in reassurance. "Ponchita, you have to trust us. Now we know that there's a threat, we'll be ready for it."

Dr. Quest nodded in agreement. "With a tachyon portal so close in proximity to IRIS, she won't be able to operate properly, and we won't be able to secure the computer systems to check them out properly." He reached out and touched future Jessie's hand comfortingly, assuringly. "I'm not saying to go back and do nothing, Jessie. With the lighthouse still standing in your time, you have the opportunity to check the programs running on the mainframe. Maybe between now and then is when something happens."

"Okay, Dr. Quest," future Jessie replied reluctantly.

"Jonny, why don't you, Jessie and Hadji escort her to the portal?" Dr. Quest recommended.

Jonny bit back a retort as the Jessie he knew put a hand on his shoulder.

"Let it go," she whispered gently to him. "You know he's right."

Jonny nodded. Knowing the Quest world systems and IRIS like the back of his hand, he knew that the tachyon portal would interfere, but he was secretly hoping that there would be another way. Shaking off the uneasiness he was feeling, he motioned to future Jessie.

Nodding, future Jessie turned to leave, and had a thought. She turned and quickly wrapped her arms around Race in a tight hug. She made sure that she said the one thing that she had wanted to say since coming back to this time. "I love you dad."

Once future Jessie did that, she broke away and followed the others out of the room, leaving her father to blink at her in awe as the teens left.

When the room became silent, Race looked at his friend in shell-shocked confusion. "What do you make of all of this, Benton?"

Benton stared at the door that the kids had left through. The accusations and implications whirled through his mind like an out of control merry go round. He had no obvious reason to question his friend that had given him the code to work on, but he was going to get more information out of his friend before he did anymore work on cracking the code. "I don't know, Race, but I am going to find out."

He got to feet and was walking away when Race called out. "Where are you going?"

"I have a 'friend' that I need to talk to," Dr. Quest replied tersely. "Don't worry, Race. We'll get to the bottom of this."

--

The kids filed out of the French doors until they were outside once more. Future Jessie grabbed for the hover board that she had left outside and tucked it under her arm. As the others followed her, future Jessie walked about halfway up the path to Lighthouse Point until she stopped and pointed. "There it is."

Following her gaze, Jonny noticed a small square of light off in the distance. It was along the cliff side like she had described, but it was also close to the water line. There would have been no way they would have spotted it on their own. "That program plays no favorites, does it?" he marveled.

"Speaking from experience, it took all of my knowledge about IRIS to get those portals to come out in the right place," Hadji noted, "and even then, that didn't turn out so well."

"I remember," Jessie remarked softly as she watched her future self prepare to go back, "I never thought I would ever get to see a dinosaur up close, and we were very nearly eaten by one."

Future Jessie put the hover board down and activated it. Hopping on top of it, she turned around and took one long look at her two best friends and her own self. There was so much to say, and yet she found it harder to express those thought than when she was in the living room with her father and Dr. Quest. Instead, she decided to part with a simple wish. "Good luck to you."

And with that, she headed off. Jonny watched as future Jessie streaked quickly towards the small square of light and went straight through it. Seconds later, the light disappeared, leaving the cliff side as dark as it had been before.

No one said anything for nearly a minute until Hadji cleared his throat. "I think I would like to work on Quest world for a while. You two are welcome to join me whenever you are ready."

"Sure," Jonny absently replied as he now watched the Jessie who had been left behind. The Jessie of their time who had not yet witnessed the horrors her future counterpart had come to warn them about. She seemed to be starting off into space and not moving.

As Hadji left for the lighthouse, Jonny moved closer to Jessie. So much had happened in one evening, and considering the face of it, she seemed too calm for her own good. "You okay?"

Jessie looked at the area where she had seen her future self disappear through the portal back to the future. She took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder at Jonny, finding concern etched on his face. She shook her head and sighed. "Oh sure, I meet my future self, she tells me my family and friends are going to die, and then she literally falls apart in front of us. How do you expect me to feel, Jonny?"

Jonny faced Jessie and put his hands on her shoulders. She had her head bowed so he couldn't see her eyes. "Look at me." When Jessie did so, he locked her gaze with his own and continued. "Dad knows more about this than he's saying. I trust him to check on this, but I think a little help is in order." He looked towards the lighthouse. "Hadji is already up there. Feel up to a research session in IRIS and then some time in Quest world?"

Jessie nodded eagerly, a smile quickly spreading across her mouth. "It's better than doing nothing. Let's go."

--

In a non-descript apartment in Maine, a nervous man sat in front of his computer. He had been sent by his employers to monitor the Quest compound, and had already been in town for the better part of the month putting his surveillance plans into action. His hacking skills were quite considerable, but unfortunately it was all he could do to get an audio feed into the living room of the main house.

Judging by the conversation he had just overheard though, a call to his employer was in order.

He typed a few commands into his computer, and soon a videoconference window opened on his screen, displaying the man that had summoned him to this task. The voice that greeted him was gruff. "I told you not to call me unless there was an emergency, Sims."

Sims shifted nervously in his chair. "That's just it, sir. I just overheard a conversation you should know about. I think you will want to hear this." Sims then proceeded to replay the conversation that he had just recorded through the audio feed.

The effect was immediate. His employer sputtered. "Time travel? Impossible. Still, keep an ear out. We need the good doctor to finish his work on our little code. Our time table cannot afford any delays."

Sims nodded. "Yes sir."

--

_Present Day, Lighthouse Point_

Jessie Bannon emerged from the portal on her hover board and found herself back in the familiar confines of Quest World. Slowing, she stepped off of her hover board and called out. "IRIS, execute logout. Command Jessie dash two one."

She heard a completion tone, and soon saw a familiar rush of green across her eyes as IRIS logged her out of Quest world. Jessie blinked for a few moments as her eyes grew accustomed to the low light of the lab. Standing up, she cast aside her visor disc on a nearby table, and moved to one of the windows overlooking the compound.

Despite her work in the past, Jessie wasn't surprised to find that nothing had changed. Through the darkness she could make out the rubble of the main house. Either it would take the others longer than she thought to find out why they were targets, or they had simply failed. Putting emotion aside, Jessie realized that if she made any further trips into time, she would have to take more into account before heading off again.

From her vantage point, Jessie could hear loud noises come from the vicinity of the lighthouse door. She leaned in closer to the window, to peer out through the darkness, pressing her face to the glass in an attempt to get a better view of the lighthouse door, but she couldn't make out any discernable shapes near the entrance to the lighthouse, human or otherwise. She had come too far to give up now, but she was running out of ideas. Had whoever attacked the compound come back to finish the job?

She knew the security precautions that she had programmed into IRIS wouldn't help the door withstand a forceful attack, so Jessie decided to take matters into her own hands. There was one thing for certain – she was tired of this whole mess, and she was more than willing to get some answers the hard way.

Scrambling over to the desk with the monitoring computer, Jessie quickly felt along the underside of the desk until she had come upon what she was looking for. Months ago, she had been in the lab when her father placed a Taurus .357 hand gun in that secret spot. Race made her swear that she would only go for it in case of an extreme emergency.

_With someone outside the door ready to kill me or worse? This is about as extreme as an emergency can get._

With a jerk, Jessie managed to dislodge the gun from its hiding place. She quickly tore off the tape that had held it to the underside of the desk, and then quickly checked the chamber and the load. She found to her satisfaction that the gun was fully loaded and ready to fire.

With gun in hand, Jessie carefully crept down the lighthouse stairs until she was back on the ground floor facing the door in question. The noises that she had heard earlier were louder now. Jessie held her gun in the ready as she waited for the intruder to come through the door. She was going to make sure that the next person coming through that door would receive a greeting that they would NEVER forget.

* * *

_Note: I have reposted chapter one to try and correct a few continuity issues and to add an extra scene. I would recommend a reread of that chapter to help things make sense._

_I'd like to thank Sigokat and Goddess Evie. Without their advice and editing assistance, this story would have ended with the previous chapter. I now have a direction on how I want this story to proceed, and now we know a little more about the enemy that caused the destruction. Will Jessie be able to figure out the truth before time runs out? Stay tuned. :)_


	6. Discoveries

Chapter 6 – Discoveries

_Present day, Quest Compound-_

Phil Corbin had lost track of time as he drove down the main highway, keeping an eye out for the turn off to Dr. Quest's compound. Trees passed by at a dizzying rate on both sides of his car before finally one side opened up showing nothing but a guard rail, the cliff side, and the unrelenting ocean below. An hour ago, his plane had landed at the small airport as planned. Leaving his pilot at the airport, he opted to make the journey to the Quest compound alone in the tiny red economy rental car that had been prepared for him at that late hour. That would at least give him time to organize his thoughts, or so he had hoped.

Phil had made this journey many times before in more pleasant circumstances. There had been many a time where the only person that could provide him a fresh aspect on a case was Dr. Quest. There was even a time when he had gone to Race to seek his help in an Intelligence One matter. He had been grateful for the backup at the time when there was no one else he could trust.

A mile later, he spotted the private road he was looking for-what seemed like a mere dirt path that led into the forest, a place for hikers and campers, but Phil knew better- and made a sharp turn onto it. As he passed by the tall surrounding woods in the darkness, Phil felt more than unsettled at how still everything seemed to be. Was it a case of nerves, or was he afraid of what he would find once he finally arrived? It was a little bit of both, he finally decided. He made the promise to himself to find out what the hell was going on around there, and Phil feared that there was the distinct possibility that he would be starting off with nothing.

Eventually the private road widened until Phil could easily spot the main gate only a few yards ahead of him. There seemed to be no sign of anyone on guard, and if not for the yellow crime scene tape draped around the bars of the main gate, Phil might not have guessed that anything was wrong at all.

Phil stopped his rental car less than a yard away from the gate, and turned to check the two items in the passenger seat. He had been in a hurry when he left his office in DC, so much of what he had brought had been swept into his briefcase. Beside that, he had a heavy duty flashlight that he'd brought as an afterthought. After making sure the flashlight was functional, Phil turned to the briefcase and opened it.

There on top of his papers sat his service weapon, his .40 Sig Sauer. Since he had become head of I-1 years ago, it was rare for Phil to see action, but he made it a point to keep his firearm in shape and ready to fire. Picking up the weapon, he quickly double-checked to make sure it was fully loaded and ready. He then quickly placed his Sig Sauer in his shoulder holster and grabbed for the flashlight. Turning it on, he was satisfied to see that its strong beam shone out of the window of the car, illuminating a patch of ground.

Everything at the ready, Phil gripped the flashlight tightly and got out of the car.

The soles of his black leather shoes seemed to crunch heavily against the ground. He knew that the dirt road normally had little to no gravel, but when Phil swept his flashlight over the ground in front of him, he realized, with some disgust, that what he had been stepping on was pieces of wooden debris from the main house.

When he swept his flashlight beam up towards where the house should have been, Phil couldn't help his reaction.

"Damn."

Phil thought he was prepared – after all, he read the incident report on the trip there. His mind had boggled at the amount of destruction described in it, but to see it first hand took his breath away.

He walked closer to the gate, and swept his beam back and forth. The mountain of rubble before him seemed too much for one house, even despite how big Dr. Quest's mansion had always seemed. Steeling himself, Phil tried the gate, and found that it swung open easily. It had been the type that had been fitted with an electronic sensor and lock, so he surmised that it must have been damaged in either the attack or the rescue efforts.

Carefully stepping inside, Phil listened as the sounds of nature surrounded him. Crickets, frogs, it almost sounded like he was in the middle of nowhere. Certainly the forest creatures had continued on with their small existences, barely taking note of, if at all, the destruction that had happened earlier that day. However, it was the sound of barking that got his attention. Scanning the surrounding area with his flashlight, Phil looked around wildly for the source, until he caught a brief flash of movement with the beam.

_Wait a minute…_

He wasn't completely sure of what he'd glimpsed, but Phil decided to chance calling out. "Bandit?"

The barking he had heard changed pitch. He decided to try once again, more sure of himself this time. "Bandit!"

In the light of his flashlight, Phil watched as the small dog came into view. Bandit cocked his head to the side and sniffed the air once before finally approaching him carefully. Chuckling low, Phil bent down and picked up the dog, giving him an eagerly received rub on the head. "Well, at least something has survived this carnage. How about it? Do you want to come with me to the lighthouse?"

Bandit squirmed in his grasp, but made no move to vote down the offer. Phil adjusted his grasp for the weight of the dog and switched up his grip on the flashlight.

"Well then, let's go."

It took a few minutes to find a path through the rubble, but soon Phil found a small cleared path around one side, and quickly traversed it in order to reach the path to the lighthouse.

Phil stood there for some moments with Bandit in hand as he looked at the lighthouse in the distance. As the reports had described, it looked, for all intents and purposes, untouched. That alone was disturbing enough, and the implications as to why that would be filed into his brain. However, something else bothered him. It wasn't the fact that no one seemed to be guarding the gate, but in the distance Phil could see a light on in the lighthouse, and signs of movement.

Pulse quickening, Phil put Bandit carefully down on the ground and pocketed his flashlight. The moon shone brightly in the sky, but the cloud cover made its light sporadic at best. He had been there enough times before to know the layout of the compound, and it was his concerns that he not be spotted that made him decide to risk the journey in the near darkness. Bandit gave him a weird look as he moved to pull his Sig Sauer and took off in a quick sprint towards the lighthouse.

Phil made it to the lighthouse in mere minutes. He thanked his evenings in the gym for keeping him in first class shape. Switching his train of thought to the task at hand, he swept the area in a wide arc, his gun at the ready.

There was no one and not even a sound save for the waves crashing against the cliff side. The wind was up, and that only served to unnerve him even more. _Maybe coming alone wasn't such a good idea after all… _

Keeping his Sig Sauer at the ready, Phil slowly made his way to the main entrance of the lighthouse. The big heavy door was an original part of the lighthouse, but from what Phil could remember, the electronic keypad to the right of it was not.

Cursing under his breath, he sidled closed to the panel to get a closer look. The panel was dimly lit in the darkness, and Phil racked his brain for a possible combination to try on the panel.

After ten minutes of work, the door remained locked. After trying it one more time to make sure, he pondered his options. Well, he did have an obligation to find out what was going on. Phil could easily explain destroying a door if it led him to whoever was responsible…it was then that he remembered when Dr. Quest had initially moved to Maine. He had been on hand with Race Bannon when the security for the compound had been planned, and when the codes were decided upon. There was an override code established in case of emergency. Dr. Quest had not wanted it revealed except to Race Bannon, but there had been one time that he had been brought in to help, and Race had given him the code and swore him to secrecy.

At this point, it was better than shooting at the heavy wooden door all night. _Here goes…_

Phil typed in the sequence of numbers, and was rewarded with an audible click from the door. Taking a sharp nervous breath, Phil stepped back and leveled his Sig Sauer at the door.

Slowly, agonizingly, the door swung open. Light from the interior flooded outwards, and it took him a moment for his eyes to adjust.

One lone figure stepped out into the night. Even in the half-lit darkness, Phil recognized her instantly, though he was dismayed by the sight of the gun in her hands pointed at him.

Eyes widening, he stood down, pointing his Sig Sauer towards the ground. "Jessie, it's me, Phil Corbin!"

One set of wild eyes met another, and Phil was flabbergasted to say the least. In the back of his mind he had wondered how he was going to begin the search for Race's daughter, but that thought had quickly died upon the sight of her. Remembering the gun in his hand, he quickly holstered it and held out a hand, still working through his own shock. "Is it really you?"

He watched as Jessie reluctantly dropped her arm holding the gun. With a weak smile, she nodded.

Phil stepped closer, intent on making sure everything was okay when he saw a change come over Jessie's features. Scowling, she pointed an accusing finger at him.

"WHERE WERE YOU? INTELLEGENCE ONE SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE! FIVE PEOPLE LOST THEIR LIVES AND YOU ARE JUST NOW ARRIVING? I-"

Her shout was loud, and Phil could easily hear the vehemence behind her words. He did the only thing he could think of. Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around the red-haired teen and held her close, all the while repeating the same phrase over and over. "I am so sorry, Jessie."

Initially, the teen-aged girl seemed stiff and unrelenting. Phil had been around Race long enough to be familiar with his daughter, and he marveled at how she had blossomed into a young lady. Race had once joked that she inherited her temper from her mother, and at this point Phil could believe it.

Eventually, Phil felt her stance soften, and he carefully moved to disarm her, grabbing the gun from her slack hand. She offered no protest, which he found to be a good sign. After a few more moments he broke away to get a better look at her. Jessie seemed to be unharmed, but the questions were still in her eyes. Shaking his head, he figured that he'd better start explaining. "I don't know what happened. In typical government fashion, I didn't get the notification until well after the fact and was the last to know. I swear to you that I hopped a plane here as soon as I heard. Were you here the whole time?"

She shook her head sadly, and then motioned for him to come inside. "You might want to come upstairs and sit down. It's quite a long story."

Barking came from behind him, and Phil turned around briefly. "Oh and by the way, I found that little one wondering around."

He saw that Jessie's eyes widened as Bandit came into view. "Bandit! Come here boy!"

With a joyful bark, Bandit bounded up the path and into Jessie's arms. Phil noticed that her eyes had varied between shock and relief, and he swore that she had tears in her eyes before picking the dog up and gave it an affectionate pat on the head before turning back to go inside. Her voice was raw and full of pent up emotion. "We better get inside."

An hour later, Bandit had contentedly fallen asleep in Jessie's lap, while she absently petted him in long, even strokes. Phil opted to remain standing, leaning against a lab table with his arms folded across his chest and his gaze fixed attentively on his young companion while Jessie took a seat on one of the computer chairs in the lab and explained what had happened that day. He felt for her when she described the devastation and chaos that she had came home to, but when Jessie started to describe her trip back through time, Phil put the brakes on her explanation. "Hold it! You expect me to believe that your body stayed here while your essence or whatever it was returned back through time?"

"Yes! That's precisely what I'm saying. Where's the problem? You have to have seen some unusual advances in science since first meeting Dr. Quest," Jessie threw up her hands in frustration, startling Bandit from his nap, who stretched and jumped down off her lap to sniff around the lab.

Phil shook his head. He was a man of action, working off of facts, reports, and hard data. Ever since his organization had been tasked with the protection of Doctor Quest however, he did have to admit that theories and possibilities entered his vocabulary more often than not. At this point he didn't have much left to go on, so Phil decided to hear Jessie out. "Okay, say, for the sake of argument, that I do believe you. What did you learn?"

He watched as Jessie stood and began to pace, looking completely lost in thought, all the while thinking out loud. "Dr. Quest told me that he was working on some sort of project. He must have been suspicious about it, because when I was getting ready to leave he mentioned something about checking in on it. In the meanwhile, we need to check the computers." Jessie stopped pacing and ran over to the monitoring computer at the far side of the room before she continued, "Whatever he was working on should be in IRIS' data banks. He always backs up his work like this."

Phil walked over behind Jessie as she began to type furiously at one of the terminals that lined the circular walls of the lighthouse.. For many minutes, he watched as she searched directories and subdirectories. His curiosity was getting the best of him. "What're you looking-"

Jessie shushed him as she minimized her search to one particular directory. Luckily, each of the files were time and date stamped, and she finally pointed at one entry. "Here. This file is the last one that Dr. Quest worked on. There's no better place to start."

He watched as she tried everything in her power to open the file, but after every last attempt, Jessie was only able to see part of the file. "Looks like Dr. Quest scanned in a copy of his work. Let's see what it is."

Slowly, the first scanned page appeared on the screen and Phil read over her shoulder. A logo was on the top right hand corner of the document, and when he saw what it was, his mouth set into a thin line. "Damn, FBI. They have a traitor in their midst."

Jessie sat staring at the screen for many moments before she stood up and dashed towards the front of the lab.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Phil asked.

He watched as she grabbed for a disc and moved to sit in one of the chairs closest to the main monitors. "I have to go back," she replied breathlessly, "Dr. Quest needs to know that what he's working on will get him and his family killed!"

Jessie then turned to the main monitors. "IRIS, activate program Jessie one."

A buzzer sounded throughout the lab before IRIS came back with a reply. "Unable to comply."

Wide-eyed, Jessie looked around at Phil standing near the monitoring console. He gave her a look and shook his head. "I don't know what's going on."

Jessie turned back to the main monitors, commanding sharply so that the computer recognized she was talking to it. "Reason for non-compliance.."

Without missing a beat, IRIS came back with a reply. "Security protocol level five has been activated."

Phil watched as all of the blood drained from Jessie's face. To him, it didn't seem to be from fear so much as shock. Her voice had a chill to it that put Phil on edge and made him reach for his Sig Sauer again. . "Someone else knows we're here."

* * *

_As always, my thanks to Goddess Evie for the editing assistance and Sigokat for some weapons advice. Phil is alive, you guys! As to the people who know they are there - they still want that lighthouse standing, but they don't want interference. We shall see how that plays out. ;)_

_Hmm, on that note of a teaser, I will leave you for now as I hunker down in my parents house for the weekend. If it were any colder. Brr... _

_Till next time,_

_Time Guardian_


	7. Friend or Foe?

_Chapter 7 – Friend or Foe?_

_The Present -_

Phil Corbin looked at Jessie as she proclaimed that someone knew that they were here. There couldn't have been any way - he left Washington leaving only a vague message that he would be gone for a few days. Even with that accursed conference call he held with the different government agencies, Phil had made sure not to reveal his destination. He readjusted the grip on his weapon as he asked, "Jessie, how would anyone know we were here? I thought IRIS was secure."

Jessie walked back over to where Phil was. "Any system can be hacked, Mr. Corbin. If anything, Jonny and Hadji taught me that," she replied dryly. "Plus, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever wants that code has been watching this place the whole time."

Phil shook his head, a little embarrassed that he hadn't thought of that himself, though he didn't let it show, and then decided to change the subject. "Well, we know partly what Dr. Quest was working from and where it came from."

Jessie glanced again at the partial image that she had initially brought up. "Other than the FBI logo, these symbols seem to be all over the page. What kind of message is this?"

"Wish I knew, Jess," Phil replied. "Normally in an espionage case, the person committing the act is trying to get information out to someone." He turned back to the monitor. "IRIS isn't trying to transmit anything?"

After sitting back down at the monitoring computer, she ran one or two testing programs before proclaiming, "No, our system is not transmitting, but someone is monitoring our computer systems. There's nothing there to trace though, no IP address, nothing."

"That's crazy," Phil protested. "I don't know much about computer networks, but I do know that you do leave a trail whenever you move around in one."

"Not necessarily. There is technology that can easily mask your identity in almost any computer network," Jessie corrected him. "Whoever these people are, they seem to be monitoring this one file. As long as IRIS is detecting an intrusion on this level, she has been programmed to implement level five protocol security, which means Quest world will not be useable."

"Whatever this file is, it was sure important enough to kill for," Phil stated grimly, and noticed Jessie's flinch, though she tried to hide it. "Is there anyway to open that file fully so we can get a proper look at it?"

Jessie turned her attention back to the file. Something seemed off about the whole thing. Her earlier efforts should have opened it entirely, unless- "IRIS must still be trying to decode the message, of course! That's why it didn't allow me to completely open it."

She then tried a different program to try and open the file, and the results confirmed her hypothesis. "The file is in use, but I don't see any obvious signs of IRIS trying to access it, save for locking us out."

"Well, if we can't see this file, then we will have to try a new direction," Phil declared as he motioned to Jessie to let him have the chair. As they switched places, Phil took a look at the computer in front of him. "Ah Jessie, does IRIS still have a link into government agency mainframes? I need to check some information in the I-One database."

Jessie stared at the monitor, lost in thought for a moment before she answered him. "What? Oh, yes. Dad made sure of that." Leaning over from the side, she typed in a few commands and a new window opened up containing the logo of Intelligence One. "There you go."

Phil looked over the screen then flexed his fingers. "Normally I would tell you to turn away, but considering the circumstances, I don't mind."

Slowly he typed in his access codes, and soon he was in the case files. Quickly, he brought up the one he was looking for - 0-37. As Phil scanned the numerous entries of information on the screen in front of him, Jessie whistled appreciatively. "You have information on everyone Dr. Quest has worked with in government? How?"

Phil smiled as he navigated through the various entries about Dr. Quest's contacts. "Never underestimate being the most well-connected agency in Washington DC. You should see the information we have on your dad. It would have been enough to - ah, here is what I was looking for."

He finally found a list of people that Dr. Quest was familiar with in the FBI, which, thankfully, only amounted to three people. Phil read each entry and thought out loud. "Let's see. Agent Greg Samuels, he was on that conference call I was on earlier. I was able to confirm he's been undercover up until an hour ago. Dr. Andrea Bender, according to this she is currently in Oslo for a Physics conference. Hmm, what's this?"

Phil focused on the last name on the list and pulled up the details. "Peter Maximoff - forty years old, born in the United States. He became involved in politics in his twenties, was recruited by the FBI when he was thirty five for an undercover project and has been incommunicado ever since."

Jessie looked at the face in the photograph that was posted and couldn't help but shudder. Something about the man seemed eerily familiar.

--

_The Past-_

Dr. Quest stalked to the library. His mind whirled with the events of the past few hours, and it served to give him a headache. Even with what he had seen and heard, he was finding it hard to wrap his mind around the concept that they could all be dead in less than two days time.

Once he entered the library, Dr. Quest sought out his cushioned office chair in front of the terminal he had been working at earlier and eagerly sat down, powering the terminal up in the process. After his files loaded, he called up the communication program he saved for when he needed to talk to people securely. Typing in the access number he was given, Dr. Quest soon brought up a video window, and there is where he saw the face of his old friend, Peter Maximoff.

Dr. Quest had met Peter when he'd first come under the protection of Intelligence One. It was a time when he had made many scientific advances, and was put under the watchful eye of the US government. Peter was the one that came forward and made the case for the FBI to offer protection to his family. In fact, he had been ready to make his decision to go with the FBI until his wife died.

In the end, it had been Phil Corbin who had made the case for Intelligence One. He'd guaranteed that Benton and Jonny would be kept under a watchful eye constantly, and Dr. Quest accepted their protection. Peter seemed to take it in stride, and Dr. Quest helped him from time to time with various problems that the FBI encountered.

Peter Maximoff looked old even for his forty years. His face was a myriad of wrinkles and his short, dark grey hair was unkempt. Dr. Quest couldn't see what Peter was wearing due to the angle of the camera, but judging by his friend's expression, he didn't look too happy to be called so late at night. Dr. Quest smiled wanly. "Peter, I need to talk to you."

From the screen he saw that Peter frowned slightly. "Benton. Don't tell me the great Dr. Quest is being stymied by a mere sheet of code."

Dr. Quest chuckled slightly. "Not in the slightest. I just had a question - after all, you have to admit, you didn't provide me a lot of information to go on when you gave me this code initially."

He watched Peter smile carefully. "Benton, as I told you when I gave you that code in the first place, I don't have any more information. It is simply crucial info for me to proceed on my current case."

Dr. Quest crossed his arms. He decided to play the one trump card he had. "Well, I have it on good authority that my life is being threatened because of something that I am working on. THIS is the only thing I am working on right now, so what do you have to say to that?"

He was disappointed when Peter didn't even bat an eyelash. "Are you really that paranoid, Benton? If what I have given you is not enough to satisfy your curiosity, then I could always go to my superiors and let them know that you were unwilling to help your country and-"

"Just remember," Benton cut Mr. Maximoff off with his reply, angry that the man would even attempt a threat, even a completely useless one, "that you came to me asking for help, and not the other way around. I am more than happy to help the government with any project they need assistance on, but I do it of my own free will." With that said, Dr. Quest severed the connection, leaving him staring at the code that he had started working on.

Briefly, Benton debated ordering IRIS to stop deciphering the code, but he rejected the idea immediately. Right now, deciphering that code was the only way to get answers, and Benton was sure as hell going to find out what was so dangerous that it could possibly the death of his family. He really was no closer to getting the answers he needed than when he'd started, but one thing was certain: Peter Maximoff was not a man to be trusted.

--

Peter Maximoff smiled as the image of Dr. Quest winked off his screen. In the time that he had organized his group under the nose of the FBI, they had made great strides in disrupting the government. The very organization that the FBI had sent him to keep tabs on became his ultimate triumph when he became the group's leader.

It was easy enough to manipulate a fool, and Dr. Quest was no exception. Sitting in his study, Peter contemplated how the conversation went and how Dr. Quest had reacted. Things were coming to a head, and Peter decided that if his mark was going to believe the ranting of a supposed 'time-traveling' girl, then maybe he needed to take action. "Toby!"

A hulking brute of a man appeared at Peter's shout. Tobias Boon was Peter's second-in-command, and with good reason. His size and skill in combat allowed him to easily take on any opponent easily twice his size, and that suited Peter's needs just fine.

Dressed in a black jumpsuit, the man's close shaved military style haircut reminded Peter of the black ops teams that he had worked with in the past.

Toby stood in front of him and saluted, then waited silently for his orders.

Leaning back in his chair, Peter thought over the quick plan that had formed in his mind before presenting it to Toby. "As soon as you can, take the helicopters out to Maine. I want your group to decimate the Quest's main house, but leave the lighthouse intact."

Toby's eyes were wide with disbelief. "But how do you know that he will continue the work? Dr. Quest is on to you - Sims said as much in his last report. We don't want to kill him off until we get the information."

Peter smirked as he regarded his computer monitor where Dr. Quest's image had been. "I have baited him just right. The good doctor will have his computer decode the message, if only to find out what we are after. Once the computer starts on the message, we will no longer have need of the good doctor. We also have no time to put another man in place to get the information we need. The FBI will be moving in on us in a matter of days and we need to know who we can trust."

Toby nodded quickly. "Yes sir. What about Dr. Quest and his family?"

Peter stood up and stretched nonchalantly. "They will be killed in the attack. And if by some small chance one of them survives our attack, we will hunt them down."

----------------------------------------------------

_Thank you Goddess Evie for the editing assistance, and hopefully this chapter answers a few questions. _

_Till next time,_

_Time Guardian_


	8. Convergence

_Chapter 8 – Convergence_

_The Past –_

Jonny and Jessie walked slowly to the lighthouse with Bandit bringing up the rear, curious to see where his master was going. When they joined Hadji in the ground floor lab, the teens set to work immediately. They scanned IRIS' systems and the cliff side where future Jessie had appeared, all of which uncovered nothing out of the ordinary.

Soon there wasn't much left to check. Bandit fell asleep under the table while Hadji sat in the chair in front of the computer. Jonny and Jessie were sitting on either end of the table, and they were focused on thinking of more options.

"I don't see any other way around it," Jonny finally declared after thinking over their situation in many ways. "We're going to have to snoop on dad. We need to find out what he's working on."

"We cannot check his computer files from here," Hadji declared. "IRIS would log any attempt and Dr. Quest would be notified immediately."

"If my dad's is still downstairs, there's no way we'd would be able to sneak to the library without having to answer a lot of questions," Jessie stated. Hopping off of the table, she continued as she began to pace. "What we need is a non-intrusive way to sneak in."

"What we could do is tap into the security camera feeds," Jonny mused. "IRIS' security levels are lower there."

All was silent for a moment as Jonny looked to Hadji and Jessie in question, waiting to see if either of them had any objections.

Finally Hadji stopped and looked squarely at him. "Do you truly believe that is our only choice?"

Jonny nodded decisively. "Considering the way dad acted after being told that we'd be attacked? We went to him with what we knew and he shut us down."

Hadji looked between the two of them before admitting. "What we have seen tonight has been truly compelling indeed. If we had not already used the Rachel program to save the world, I would have been ready to chalk this whole thing up to a hallucination or an attempt by one of our enemies to get to us."

"That's just it, Hadji," Jessie cajoled. "We were ALL there. Even when we used the program in the beginning when Surd was threatening the world, you saw its power. We went from the present time to the end of the world and back. When I initially saw my future self, even I thought it was a fake. Why do you think I reacted the way I did when she recounted that story of when I was a kid? No one save for my mother knew that story – well, before tonight at any rate."

Hadji shook his head. "If we leave things as they are, there is no guarantee that we will avert the fate that we were warned about. Still, I would agree that Dr. Quest seemed to be too secretive about all of this considering the circumstances. I do not agree with the methods, but I suppose there is no way I can talk you out of this."

Jonny smiled grimly as he turned to the keyboard. "You suppose right, Hadj."

He then began his assault on the code, typing in command after command on the keyboard. Hadji watched the effort intently while Jessie walked over to where Bandit was taking his evening snooze under the table to give him a good scratch behind the ears.

Minutes later, Jonny leaned back and stretched out his hands from the effort, a satisfied smile on his face. "I've got it."

He then pressed one final button, and the security feed from the library appeared on the screen. The three teens gathered closely around the monitor to get a better view.

---

Shaken from his conversation with Peter, Benton got up from his chair and headed for the library door. What he needed was some quiet time away from that blasted code and from the realization that his supposed 'friend' may have betrayed him. However, when he reached the library door and opened it, he was more than shocked to see Race standing there.

Torn between anger and curiosity, Benton reluctantly sighed, his curiosity finally winning the battle. "Dare I ask how long you've been standing out here?"

Race smiled back at him, but something about the smile made him feel uneasy. "It was long enough to hear raised voices and threats. Now do I get to find out what's going on?"

Benton thought for a long hard moment before motioning him inside the library. Maybe it was finally time to come clean with what he knew. Closing the door behind them, he resumed his seat at the computer while Race took a seat in a nearby chair.

Sorting his thoughts, Benton considered where to begin his story, finally settling on one particular point in time. "I met Peter Maximoff just shortly before Intelligence One assigned you to my case. He had recently been recruited to the FBI and was getting ready to go undercover into some shady organizations. He came to me because there had been a need for small, easily concealable surveillance equipment. I happened to have it."

Pausing, Benton thought of the better times that he'd had working with Peter before continuing. "We'd developed quite the working relationship, but that was also when I was making bigger strides in my work and the government wanted me protected. Without going too far off topic, that's where Intelligence-1 and you entered the picture, Race."

Taking a steadying breath, Benton then told Race all about the conversation he had just had with Peter. After he finished and voiced his suspicions, he watched Race ponder what he'd said. "This is something that affects all of us, Benton. We need to bring in the cavalry to get Maximoff."

Benton shook his head. Thoughts of his chilling conversation with Peter still ran through his mind, but despite that, suspicions were all he had, and this was one case where he wanted more. "No, not yet. I want IRIS to work on this file. There's something important here that Peter wants and I want to find out what it is."

He watched as a scowl crossed Race's features. Despite his friend's reaction, Benton was more than willing to stand by the assertion. However, it was more than disconcerting to see Race stand quickly, spin on his heel and stalk back towards the door. He had to say something. "Race."

Race paused, hand on the door handle to the library. "What?" the word came out harshly.

Benton tightened his resolve and tried to drive his point home. "You know we don't have enough proof. We'll only look crazy if we try to go to the government with our suspicions. Peter's smarter than that. We have to find out more about this threat ourselves."

Race wheeled around on him with an expression of disbelief. "Do you hear yourself? You were in the same room I was in when we heard a future version of my daughter tell us of our deaths. Did you not see the same things I did?"

Benton shook his head. "I admit that was compelling, but we need more info-"

His friend cut him off angrily. "Information, information, is that all this is to you? I think we have enough information. We have a future version of Jessie, who came through a time portal made BY YOUR OWN computerhand to tell us of our doom. Now if this is reluctance on your part to go after Maximoff-"

The Aanger that he was feeling earlier bubbled to the surface. "Race, that's not fair."

Race held up a hand. "No wait, let me finish. Out of all the years I have spent here, first as an assigned agent and then your employee, I have seen miracles of science made by your creation. I have seen enough to know that our horizons ourare broader than probably anyone will ever know because you've have shown me that. Now we get information that can potentially save our lives and you end up putting the damn blinders on. Life is rarely fair, Benton."

Benton looked on in frustration as Race turned back towards the door. "Race, I need to check over this code, at least. I'm am sure most of our answers are there."

He heard Race pause and take a long breath before replying in an icy tone. "Fine. You check what you need to check. I'm going to do my damn job and protect our families."

And with that simple declaration, Race opened the door and left the library, slamming the door behind him.

---

Jessie watched Jonny punch a few keys on the keyboard, severing the link with the camera in the library. She noticed that his hand was shaking, and she couldn't blame him.

"I've never seen them this angry before," she murmured. "That was a little more than I ever wanted to know.

Jonny took a shuddering breath. "I'm not too happy with it either Jess, but you heard my dad. This Maximoff guy or whoever he is gave him a code to work on, and now the whole time travel thing happens? It's is too much of a coincidence. He has to be the cause of all of this."

"It is not the question of what we now know Jonny, but what we can do with this information," Hadji replied solemnly. "We have the name of a potential enemy who wants Dr. Quest to do some work for him. Maybe if we find out more about the man, maybe we can discover his motive without having to touch the file itself."

Jonny started on the computer keyboard again, this time bringing up an FBI database. "It better pan out, because if we tell dad or Race how we got our information to go on, we'll will be grounded for life."

Jessie watched as Jonny navigated through different parts of the site, and wisely decided not to inquire how he knew where to go to look. They both hadve seen their fathers search the database before, so it was a given that he would pick up a few pointers.

Jonny finally spoke up as the screen filled up with data. "Okay, I found a profile on our good friend Maximoff. He was recruited for the FBI just before dad and I were put with I-1. It looks like he was assigned to an operation Cocytus, and has been with that ever since."

Jessie shook her head in amazement.

"How appropriate. Dante described Cocytus as being the home of traitors when he wrote _Inferno._"

Hadji pushed himself off of the table and tried to coax Bandit from under the table. "So what we have is a man we hardly know anything about making veiled threats to Dr. Quest. We also have a code we know nothing about because we cannot touch it. For all we know this man could be deep undercover and the people after him are the ones that come after us."

Jessie sighed. There was less than forty hours left until the fate alluded to by her future self. The new information swirled around in her head, leaving her feeling unsteady. They knew who their potential executioner was, but how could they stop him? Hadji's theory sounded completely plausible. She thought about their options and figured out one other option that could get to the heart of the matter. "Let me have a go at the computer. There's is someone that owes me a favor that could help us make sense of this."

---

_The Present-_

Phil Corbin shut down the link he had made to the I-1 database and sat back. There was a lot of information to take in, but he was more than a little worried about Jessie. Ever since she had seen the picture provided with Peter Maximoff's profile, Phil noticed that she seemed to be quite spooked.

Standing, he saw that she had walked over to the corner of the lab where Bandit was taking a snooze. She was kneeling down and gently stroking the dog's back. Judging by the lack of movement on Bandit's part, he was enjoying it just fine.

When he walked closer to Jessie, she looked up at him intently. "Mr. Corbin, what are our options?"

Phil smiled. Trust Race's daughter to get to the point. "Well, we need to find some way to shut down the decoding program and get this Quest World working so that we can warn Dr. Quest in the past and stay alive in the process. Otherwise, this Peter Maximoff will end up getting the information he needs and probably disappear while finding a way to kill us in the process."

Jessie looked at him in shock, "Wait a minute, you mean you believe me?"

Phil gave her a sad smile. "Jess, a year after I-1 assigned your father to the Quest family, I interviewed Race as part of his personnel review to make sure everything was proceeding normally. Can't have protection if the protected can't stand their agent you know? I'll never forget what he said. 'Phil, I've seen more miracles and surprises since coming here than you will ever know. If you ever get a chance, you need to see and experience these amazing inventions.'"

Jessie smiled at this unexpected insight as Phil laughed. "Oh, there were times when I wanted to shoot him, but yeah, your dad has saved my ass more times than I can count. I've tried to return the favor more than once. If there's a chance to save my friend from this fate, then I'm willing to take it. There's only one problem with blocking access to the file - once it's done, we lose any element of surprise."

Jessie looked at him intently, eager to act. "It's easy enough to do, so what's the problem with revealing ourselves?"

Phil stood stiffly. "Consider this. If it's as we suspect, this man is responsible for trying to take sensitive material out of the hands of the FBI. He couldn't get at it cleanly, since it came to him coded. Maximoff went to the only man he trusted."

Jessie nodded, "Dr. Quest."

Phil nodded before continuing. "He probably kept Dr. Quest under surveillance for some time. Something tipped off Maximoff and he decides to kill off five people, all the while watching over IRIS' pet project. He must want this data badly enough to hang around. If we cut him off, he or his flunkies will come running."

Jessie stopped petting Bandit as what Phil had said processed through her mind. _Oh god._ She stood up for a moment, totally oblivious to anything around her. It took Phil putting a hand on her shoulder before she was able to rouse herself from her tortuous thoughts.

She was then dimly aware of Phil gently calling to her. "Jess?"

Her head forward, Jess hugged herself to try and ward off the chill of her realization, "If Maximoff had been watching and listening the entire time, he would know I traveled to the past. He would know that I tipped them off. Mr. Corbin, I'm the one that doomed them to their fate."

Phil's hand never left her shoulder. He spoke softly but evenly. "Jess, it was only a theory. Even if there is a grain of truth to it, there's still a chance to stop Maximoff if the computer is safe, right? Don't tell me your father was wrong about Dr. Quest's inventions."

His words had the desired effect. Jessie turned around and looked him straight in the eye. Her look of determination reassured him as she nodded. "Let's do this then, Mr. Corbin."

--

Peter Maximoff was awakened from a sound sleep by the ringing of his phone. Muttering a curse, he quickly snatched the phone off of his bedside table and answered it with one, hard greeting. "Maximoff."

It was one of his technicians that was monitoring the file in the Quest's computer system. The news that his tech imparted made him a little more than uneasy, and by the time Peter ended his conversation with the tech and dialed Toby, he was nearly livid. "This is Maximoff. We've been shut out of the network." He listened for a moment to Toby make excuses before he lost all patience and growled. "What I WANT is your team on the Quest grounds within the hour. Study the plans that I provided you of the compound and the lighthouse. Secure the damn computer and retrieve our file. Kill anyone that you may encounter. Contact me when you are on site."

Peter quickly turned his phone off and dropped it back onto his bedside table. He shifted himself into a sitting position on his bed and grabbed for the robe that he had discarded on the floor.

If he wanted this mission to be a success, there would be no sleep this night.


	9. Encounters

_Chapter 9 - Encounters_

_Present -_

It was nearly one in the morning when the black Humvee pulled up to the gate of the Quest compound. Toby shut off the engine and gave a sweeping glance around. He was still rattled by his earlier conversation with Peter. Why was he so concerned about losing contact with one computer? There could have been a multitude of explanations.

It was then that he spotted the car parked only a few feet ahead of his. _So Peter was right. _

Toby turned to the three other occupants in the Humvee that he had personally handpicked for this mission. They were all dressed in dark clothing, which would allow them to blend into the night more easily, and the ski masks they wore would allow their mouths and eyes to be visible. Each of them carried an H&K MP5K rifle and a serious countenance that told of their focus on the mission.

"It looks like Peter was right," Toby spoke up, "we'll split into teams of two. Our goal is to reach the lighthouse point and raid the lighthouse. That's where the computer is. We're to secure the computer, and retrieve the information Peter sent us here for. If you encounter any resistance, do not hesitate to shoot. Am I clear?"

His three counterparts nodded silently. 

Toby's mind turned to the mission at hand. "Good. Check your weapons and move out. All of you know the layout of the grounds and the lighthouse from the schematics we studied on the way here. We'll have minimal light to work in, so tread carefully."

They each double checked their weapons, ensuring they were fully loaded and ready to fire, and then they opened their doors, stalking out into the night. 

* * *

"Damn."

Phil Corbin swore loudly as he stuffed his cell phone back into his pocket and went to brood over by the window overlooking the grounds. After finding out that the nearest I-One reinforcements were over an hour away from their position, he was beginning to regret allowing Jessie to block access to the file so soon.

However, what was done was done. Surely Maximoff had to know about their presence by now. Phil was half surprised that IRIS hadn't spouted off an intruder alert yet.

He turned and saw Jessie still sitting in front of the monitoring computer completely lost in thought, which explained the lack of complaint about the cursing. "Jess? Penny for your thoughts?"

Jessie was apparently very deep in thought, for Phil noticed that she looked startled as she looked up at him. "It just seems like my past memories were changing. I could swear to you that the first time I'd seen Maximoff was when you showed me the picture, but now I remember seeing the information along with Jonny and Hadji in the past few days."

Phil crossed his arms, but couldn't quite blame her. Similar things were happening in his own head, and it was beginning to induce a headache. "If I had to hazard a guess, it sounds like your time travel jaunt has started something."

She was excited now and stood. "They must be researching Maximoff in the past. Now if we could go back in time with the additional information we have-"

Klaxons sounded throughout the lab, cutting off her declaration. Bandit yelped, having been woken from his perch in the corner, and scampered over to where his mistress stood. Wide-eyed, Jessie sat back down at the computer and called up the readings for the security system.

"What do we have, Jessie?"

Jessie had been so intent on bringing up the information that she hadn't noticed Phil move behind her. She looked up at him and noticed the same grim expression that her father had always worn when there was danger. 

Turning her attention back to the monitor, she pointed at four quickly moving blips on a sensor reading. "IRIS has picked up four intruders. It looks like they've entered through the entrance main grounds."

She looked back up at Phil who by this time had gone over to the table where he'd placed Jessie's discarded weapon. 

Phil picked up the Taurus .357 that he had taken from Jessie and tested its heft and checked to see that it was fully loaded. With four intruders it was a safe bet they were some sort of invasion force, and probably armed with assault rifles, or worse. Numerous tactical options ran through his head, and he started asking quick questions of the teen. "Can IRIS protect the lighthouse? Are there any other weapons around here?"

Jessie stood and looked around. "To answer your first question, there are a few surprises I can have IRIS cook up, and second, you took the only gun I knew of in here."

He battled to keep his frustration in check. "Just beautiful."

There was only one option left to him now. "Jessie, I need you to stay here. I'll go out there and see if I can buy us enough time for help to arrive." 

Jessie moved closer to him. "I'm coming with you. I can help!" 

Phil turned quickly as he placed the Taurus .357 behind him tucked into his waistband. "You know more about IRIS than I do. If I can't hold them back, you're the only person that can protect the information and get it to people who can do something about it."

Jessie scowled after a few moments. "Dad must have gotten his diplomatic skills from you, cause I could never win an argument with him, either. Hmm, wait a sec, I think I have an idea." 

Phil watched with interest as she opened a nearby desk drawer, scrambling through the various electronics stored there until she found what she was looking for. Withdrawing the tiny gadget, she tossed it in Phil's direction. "Here, catch."

He shot out a hand, catching the tiny gadget in mid air. On first glance it looked like a modified hearing aid. Looking back up at Jessie, Phil asked. "Let me guess: another Dr. Quest invention?"

She nodded curtly. "I can at least let you know where the intruders are, right? Put it in your ear. It has microphone and headphone capabilities built in." 

Phil grinned as he placed the device in his right ear. Jessie then took a seat back at the computer and hit a button. "Testing…can you hear me ok?"

"Your voice is coming through loud and clear," Phil replied as he pulled the Sig Sauer from his holster and headed towards the lab entrance. "You get to work on protecting the lighthouse."

He could have sworn that he could hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Yes, _sir_."

Oh yeah, she was a chip off of the old block all right.

* * *

When Phil Corbin stepped back outside into the night, the wind coming off of the sea chilled him slightly, raising goose bumps on his arms and the back of his neck. Holding his Sig Sauer at the ready and feeling the pressure of the hidden Taurus .357 at his back, Phil took off running. The meandering, sloping path to the lighthouse was out in the open save for the rocks that lined either side of the path. There wasn't much available in the way of cover, and he wasn't too eager on being such an easy target.

It was time to get a read on where the bad guys were. He kept his voice low as he requested, "Jessie, time to point me in the right direction."

It took a minute, but soon he heard her voice loud and clear. "Two of them are already halfway up the path to the lighthouse and closing in on your position."

_Damn and double damn._ It looked like he was going to have to paint a big target on himself after all. Phil quickly checked the part of the path that he was on, and found a medium sized boulder on the far edge that had a little room for someone to stand behind. Considering the alternative, he eagerly went for the small standing space afforded to him, and did his best to block out the fact that there would be nothing keeping him from taking a cold dip in the water if he didn't watch his step.

Phil carefully stepped into the small space behind the boulder, and flattened himself against it as best he could. From his vantage point, Phil had a clear view of the path and with the slope of the path he would be able to see them coming easily and be hidden from view. He gripped his Sig Sauer tightly, and settled down to wait.

Minutes later, he spotted his targets when two men appeared, advancing quickly up the path. He noted the assault rifles that both of them held and quickly determined that they had the advantage in firepower. 

Phil holstered his weapon and waited. He had to time everything just right if he wanted surprise on his side. He watched as the two men came closer. Phil held his breath and waited as they advanced right past his position. He gave them a few seconds, and then made his move.

Rushing with tremendous energy, he exploded from his hiding place and went after the one closest to him. Phil quickly hooked an arm around the guy's neck and wrenched him hard to the ground, eliciting a groan of pain from his victim. The assault rifle that the man held fell to the ground. 

He quickly scrambled for the weapon and managed to scoop it up just as the second man turned around. Using the fallen man as a shield, Phil quickly fired on the second man, hitting him squarely in the chest. The second man dropped to the ground without firing a shot.

After a few seconds of silence, Phil stood, still clutching the weapon he had taken from the first man. Looking over his handiwork, he finally began to feel some hope in all of this. Maybe they could turn this around after all and-

"Mr. Corbin behind you!"

The shouted warning in his ear nearly deafened him, but it had been too late. Whirling around, he found two more men, dressed the same as the first two that he'd just taken on, both with their weapons pointed straight at him.

Jessie pounded the desk in frustration. She had held out her hope when the first two goons went down so easily, but now the tables were turned. "Mr. Corbin?!"

Nothing. Silence greeted her hails, and the only sounds in the lab came from her breathing and Bandit's soft snoring from the corner of the lab from where he'd gone back to his nap. On the monitor before her she could see the heat signatures of two of the intruders surrounding Corbin.

_What was she going to do?_

* * *

As always, my infinite thanks goes to Goddess Evie for her assistance in editing. :) As for where this is going - well I thought of an interesting way it could go - I think. We shall see. 


	10. Confessions

_Chapter 10 - Confessions_

_The Present -_

Phil Corbin looked back and forth between the two men pointing their guns at him, and wondered what he was going to do next. With the firepower they were packing he could at best take one out before the other one would kill him.

What could he do?

"Hey! Two against one is unfair!"

Corbin looked around in some confusion. The voice was close and sounded distinctly familiar.

A moment later, he saw two shapes swoop in from behind the armed men, taking them down with ease. Phil wasted no time in lunging forward and grabbing both guns before the two men could recover, but who had helped him?

The voice that he had heard earlier now spoke to him directly.

"Agent Corbin, I hope these two guys weren't harassing you."

Phil looked around wildly for the source of the voice, then his eyes widened as he saw who had said those words.

Before him, Jonny Quest and Hadji Singh stood on two hover boards.

Words failed him. This didn't make any sense. "But- but- you two are supposed to be dead!"

"Ah, Jonny, I am afraid our unexpected presence after our apparent demise has put him into a sense of shock," Hadji stated.

Jonny shook his head and shrugged. "Well, it was either charge in or leave him to become Swiss cheese. I'm pretty sure he didn't mind option A." He maneuvered his hover board to move closer to Phil and then attempted to summarize the situation. "Agent Corbin, this may be a little hard to believe, but we're actually from the past. Jessie traveled to our time to warn us that we would be attacked, and then she returned here. We came to the future to investigate further."

As Phil heard the words, things started to make some sort of crazy sense. If Jessie hadn't told him about the time traveling earlier, he would have been sure that he'd lost his mind. It was at that point that he realized that Jessie was still trying to squawk in his ear through the earpiece communicator he was wearing.

"Mr. Corbin! I just picked up two more heat signatures. Are you all right?"

Smiling faintly, Phil finally answered her. "I'm fine Jessie. In fact, I have two friends here who came to visit you."

* * *

Jessie paced in the lab, wondering what could have happened. During the confrontation, when Mr. Corbin had gone silent, she had feared the worst.

Moments later, IRIS sounded to let her know that he had made it back to the lighthouse, and Jessie rushed to the door to open it.

When she did, she was more than a little surprised to see that Phil was not alone. Here eyes widened in surprise and her mouth spread out into a grin. "Jonny! Hadji! What are you doing here in this time?"

Phil stepped into the doorway, dragging in one of the two men that had surrounded him. "Jessie, if you don't mind holding your questions, we have two men here that I think can shed a little light on this whole thing."

Jonny and Hadji both advanced, carrying the other man.

"Yeah, and besides this guy is getting heavy," Jonny complained.

Jessie gave them room to advance and then went to find some rope. Fifteen minutes later, they were all sequestered in the lab, the two unconscious intruders tied up securely on two chairs in the middle of the room. Phil stood over them, checking their clothing for any clues. Jonny and Hadji stood at the window overlooking the compound. They silently stared at the scene of destruction as Jessie approached them, and she couldn't blame them.

Jonny finally turned around in amazement. "Jess, you described this, but to see it up close-"

"I know," she interrupted. "It is different seeing it first hand. Now, do I get to find out why you're here?"

"Well, we investigated a few leads, but we did not find any clear information," Hadji spoke up.

"And that was when your past self mentioned that someone owed her a favor," Jonny continued with a conspiratorial wink. "She figured that with all the trouble that had happened back in our time because of you, we needed more information. We recalibrated the scanners to scan for tachyon emissions-"

Jessie shook her head in amazement and annoyance as she finished his thought. "And so here you are, but why didn't she come?"

Hadji smiled. "Let's just say when the timeline is changed, you will remember a very heated game of rock, paper, and scissors."

Phil's voice broke into their conversation. "They're waking up."

The three teens walked over to where Corbin stood. Sure enough, both men were moaning.

Jessie sidled closer to Phil and asked in a low voice. "So what's the plan?"

Phil grinned in response. "I think I have the perfect way to rattle their cages. Jonny, Hadji, come here. Here's what we're going to do…"

--

Tobias Boon had the mother of all headaches. His eyelids fluttered open, and he found that he was in a chair with his hands bound behind him. When his vision cleared, he found that he was sitting in some sort of lab. Thoughts were coming wildly to him.

"You failed your mission, you know."

He jerked upward with a start and saw the man that had spoken standing before him. This must have been the man that Peter had alluded to. Tobias sneered at him. "Who are you?"

Phil took out the ID from his pocket and quickly flashed it at him. "Agent Phil Corbin, Intelligence One. You know, Peter Maximoff should have hired better flunkies."

Tobias knew better than to rise to idle insults, but he wasn't about to let this insolent idiot insult his leader's vision. "Our mission had been a success so far."

He heard his teammate struggling nearby and Tobias turned around to see that he was in the same position, tied up in a chair. Turning back to the agent, he tried to figure out what was going on. "What's your game?"

Tobias watched as Agent Corbin looked at him in some surprise. "Oh, there are no games here. It's just that your attack on the compound failed. Dr. Quest and his family? News flash - they're alive."

Tobias' eyes widened. That was impossible – he had read the reports, he had seen the television news reports for himself. "You lie," he growled.

The agent then kneeled down until he was at his eye level. "The U.S government has the amazing power of covering up what they want to. We knew you were coming. Jonny, Hadji?"

Tobias watched in amazement as he saw two of the people that should have been dead walk forward. He recognized them from the mission dossier he had read before leading the attack on the Quest compound. Words failed him.

The one he recognized as Jonny Quest spoke. "You know, my dad knew Maximoff was coming after him, that's why Agent Corbin is here."

The other boy spoke low and even. "Dr. Quest figured out your scheme."

Shock gave way to anger and Tobias growled. "You don't know anything! This is all impossible! Dr. Quest was supposed to decode a list of names for Maximoff of FBI agents that had invaded our organization so he would know who to have executed. Our readings indicate that code hasn't been cracked yet!"

Phil Corbin grinned at the man. So far his plan was working to the letter. Seeing Jonny and Hadji had the same jarring impact that it had on him initially. Now that he knew what Maximoff wanted, it was time to figure out one final detail. He scoffed at the man's protest. "Readings? Do you really trust computers these days? We were feeding you false readings, of course."

The man looked at him in pure rage. Phil then decided to drive the point home. "You will be going away for a very long time, and Maximoff will not give you the time of day. You will be cut off, alone, and lucky to make it in federal prison. I hear tell that despite all of the things that they tolerate there, they hate child molesters and traitors to their country."

"I will die before that will happen," the man declared defiantly.

Phil moved forward, fast as lightning, grabbing the man by the neck.

"Listen, you insignificant piece of trash," he growled. "You know what? I have the resources to have you watched 24/7, and you know what that means? You are never going to be alone. The US government will be hounding your every step, preventing you from dying for your 'cause'. You cannot avoid this fate, but you can make sure that Maximoff joins you. Right now he's probably sitting in his stronghold, cursing your very name, wondering how someone so stupid could –"

"Shut up!" The man yelled. "You know nothing about our cause!"

Phil matched the man's anger word for word. "We know enough – we caught you, didn't we? Now tell me where Maximoff is!"

He watched as the man thought for a moment, then spat out a series of coordinates.

Phil looked over his shoulder. "Boys?"

Jonny and Hadji were standing only a few feet behind him. Hadji flashed him a thumbs up signal. "We can take it from here, Agent Corbin."

Nodding his approval, he then turned back to the man bound before him. "Thank you. Now I get to do something that I have wanted to do ever since this mess started."

And with that, Phil pulled back and delivered a clean right cross to the man's chin, sending him back into unconsciousness.

--

Jessie watched Jonny and Hadji prepare to leave, and couldn't help but wish that they would stay. Now that they had the information that they desperately needed though, she knew they had to go back.

Hadji's voice broke into her train of thought. "Jessie? Is something the matter?"

Shaking her head, Jessie smiled and gave Hadji a big hug. "Nothing's the matter. Just make sure this story has a happy ending, ok?"

Breaking away from Hadji, she then turned to Jonny. She paused awkwardly for a moment before she leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Blushing furiously, Jonny shrank back and turned to Hadji. "We better go, Hadj. We've got our future to save."

As they watched through the lighthouse window and saw Jonny and Hadji journey back through the portal that they had come from, Jessie heard Phil ask. "Jessie? When they change the events, we won't remember any of this, will we?"

Jessie shrugged. "Hard to say, but my best guess is no. Our past selves will continue on and overwrite this timeline like nothing ever happened."

Phil smiled. "Well, at any rate, it has been a pleasure working with you, Miss Bannon."

She laughed at the compliment. "Likewise, Mr. Corbin."

* * *

_The Past-_

On their hover boards, Jonny and Hadji arrived back through the portal and into the familiar confines of Quest World.

Stepping off his hover board, Jonny called out. "Jess! We're back. Log us out!"

He didn't hear a reply, but moments later the familiar flash of green came across his eyes and then disappeared. Blinking, the familiar outlines of the lab came into view, and he stood up. "Jess, why didn't you say anything?"

Jonny had his answer almost at once. There sat Jessie at the monitoring computer with a sheepish look on her face, the reason for which had to be that her father was standing right behind her. Race Bannon's arms were folded, and the glare he issued them made Jonny feel like he was five years old again. Hadji moved to speak up, but Race held out a hand.

"Jessie filled me in on your little 'time travel research mission' and we will talk about punishment later," Race glowered at each of them. "In the meanwhile we have to get moving."

Something about the way Race looked was beginning to worry Jonny, and then he realized what was missing from this scene. "Race, where's my dad?"

Race looked to his daughter before he looked at Jonny. "Dr. Quest left a message. He's gone to meet Maximoff, a potentially dangerous guy, alone. I tried to get to him before he reached the airstrip, but he beat me there and has taken the Dragonfly. I've been busy on the horn with Phil Corbin so I don't know where he's going, and he's shut me out of the system, so I can't take his GPS readings."

Jessie's heart went out to Jonny as she watched a myriad of emotions cross his face before finally replying. "Hadji and I know where he's headed."

Race shook his head in amazement as he looked at the three teens. "Somehow, I knew you were going to say that. Let's get moving. Your father has a pretty good head start."

* * *

_As always, many thanks to Goddess Evie with the editing help. There's just one chapter left! Please tune in for the conclusion, won't you? ;) _


	11. Endgame

Chapter 11 - _Endgame_

_The Past-_

Dr. Quest stepped out of the Dragonfly onto the tarmac that he'd landed on and wondered how mad Race was about now.

After the argument that they'd had, Dr. Quest had turned back to the code that Peter had given him, and tried a few more things he knew in order to break it. After adjusting IRIS to allow for what he knew, the code was easily broken, and what he saw shocked him.

The code revealed a dozen names. According to the list and what Dr. Quest could cross-reference, they were FBI agents who had penetrated Peter Maximoff's organization. Considering what he knew and what information Jessie had brought from the future, he was pretty sure that Peter wanted these threats eliminated.

_And he used me to try and do it. _

For some reason that realization burned more than the thought of what Peter wanted to do, but he wasn't about to allow anyone to be killed by his former friend's actions.

After putting forth a few changes of his own to the code, Dr. Quest contacted Peter to let him know that he had decoded the information and that he was willing to meet. Peter seemed all too eager to impart his coordinates, which made things all the more strange.

The coordinates had led him to a strange island nearly five hundred miles off of the coast of Maine. The strange thing was that it wasn't on any maps. Dr. Quest's mind had boggled at the possibilities as he'd circled around it before spotting the tiny lights framing the landing strip at the center of the island.

After landing and securing his craft, Dr. Quest looked around. When he had circled the island above it'd looked huge, but now that he had landed he realized that the island wasn't that much bigger than an average city. The buildings surrounding the runway seemed massive in the near darkness, but one detail he spotted chilled him to the bone.

In what looked like a massive hangar, a group of black helicopters sat silently.

Dr. Quest felt a chill as he remembered future Jessie's chilling description of helicopters taking out the compound. This was getting way too close for comfort.

A new sound distracted him from his discovery. Turning, he saw a pair of headlights cutting through the darkness up the length of the runway. From the sound of the motor he surmised that a jeep was coming his way. Moments later his suspicions were confirmed when a military grade jeep pulled up beside him. In it, he recognized Peter Maximoff, but Dr. Quest had never seen the driver before.

Peter was sitting in the back seat, and beckoned him to get inside the vehicle. "Come, Benton. Let me show you to my humble abode."

Every instinct told him not to do it, to try and keep this transaction on his own terms. He had his own ways of fighting, but Dr. Quest had a purpose to this visit: he wanted to see just how deep this organization went.

Against his best instincts, Dr. Quest climbed into the jeep, keeping his expression as guarded as he could.

"Benton, relax," Peter chided with a smile. "All we're going to do is go back to my place so we can talk, that's all."

Dr. Quest looked at the smiling man and couldn't help but feel like a fly that had just walked into the spider's parlor.

* * *

In the prototype Quest Jet II, Race Bannon urged the craft on at top speed, but knew that even with the extra power that they would be arriving at their destination well after Dr. Quest had. Jonny sat in the copilot's seat and looked out the window through the open water. His thoughts were going a mile a minute and none of them were good. Jessie and Hadji sat in the seats behind them and wondered what they would find when they arrived.

Jessie was the first to break the tense silence in the cockpit. "Jonny, are you sure about these coordinates?"

His voice was subdued. "Yeah, Hadj and I heard it straight from one of the hired thugs."

"Well, according to the basic maps, there isn't supposed to be anything out here in the open water for miles," Race chimed in, "but where this case is concerned, I'll believe it when I –see it. I think we have our proof and it's out the window."

Jessie looked out the window as Race banked around, and that was when she saw it. "An island that isn't on any maps? Dad, you're saying they've _made_ this island?"

"At the least, it means that Maximoff's organization has been a busy one," Race commented grimly. "If they have the means to engineer an island, I can only imagine what we'll encounter down there."

"Not to mention the firepower," Hadji added. "We saw the effects in the future."

"We know enough," Jonny declared. "Dad's down there."

Shaking his head, Race set the autopilot on quickly before turning to address all three teens at once. "Ok, listen up: Don't make me regret bringing you three along. I have a call in with Phil, and he has mobilized his I-1 forces along with a few extra surprises, but it's going to be an hour at least before we see any signs of them. Until then, we're on our own."

Jessie looked back out the window at the island below. "We aren't just going to wait on I-1 to get here, are we?"

Race shook his head. "No. We're going in, but I want promises from each of you. One – the three of you will stick close to me. Two – you guys will do what I tell you to do, and three, if something happens to me and Dr. Quest, I want all of you back here and on this plane taking off."

Jessie couldn't believe her ears. "But dad, you can't mean that."

"I mean every word, _Ponchita_," Race replied earnestly, "All three of you have had simulator training and basic instruction from me, and so I know if it comes down to it, all of you could handle this craft. You, Jonny and Hadji are very inventive and quick on your feet, but this opponent is very dangerous. Along with that, we don't know what kind of trouble Dr. Quest is in."

Jessie sobered at her dad's explanation. For him to be so concerned about what this guy could do- Jessie didn't want to think of the possible outcome. "I promise."

Jessie watched as Race extracted similar yet reluctant promises from both Jonny and Hadji.

Race then turned around and disengaged auto-pilot. "Now that we have that clear, let's go see if Peter Maximoff is home, shall we?"

* * *

Dr. Quest watched in fascination as the jeep sped across the darkened runway and onto a dirt road that meandered through numerous groups of trees. What was even more interesting was that they seemed to be going up in elevation. "For a man made island, this is something."

"It wasn't easy," Peter replied, gesturing outside. "I had to play my connections to the hilt. It was all in the name of operation Cocytus of course. All of the dirt, all of the equipment – the FBI provided it all to me. They must have thought I could keep this organization busy and keep them out of trouble."

That wasn't what he had meant, but since the man brought it up, Dr. Quest decided to ask the big question that was on his mind. "Why turn on your own country, Peter?"

Peter chuckled. "Oh please, spare me. Sending me undercover into this operation was to have been my last with the FBI. Seems some of the bigwigs thought all of those years of meritorious service meant nothing to them."

Dr. Quest shook his head. "But to go to this extreme- this is madness."

"Madness?" Peter mocked. "Try eye opening. My own government, the one I swore I would defend, turned its back on me. It is an imperfect system, ripe for someone to take hold of, to shape and mold into the perfect utopia."

He was mad and there was no doubt about that. Dr. Quest grew silent as he saw the outline of a large house loom in front of them in the darkness. The headlights of the jeep did little to allow him to see any of the detail of the house at all.

The driver turned onto a paved driveway, and seconds later came to a stop in front of the front entrance of the house. Peter then turned around and pointed a pistol at Dr. Quest. "Of course you came here willingly and all, but I'm not going to take any chances. Out of the jeep, Benton. _Now_."

* * *

Race managed the landing of the Quest Jet II with the maneuvering thrusters, allowing him to vertically land the craft on the landing strip of the island. After he shut down the engines, he reached under his seat and grabbed for the Taurus .357 that he kept stashed there.

"Hadji, get the scanners going," Race requested. "We need to know what's out there."

"Right away, Race."

Hadji swiveled his seat around to face the sensor panel. After adjusting a few settings, he studied the results on the monitor.

"There are a few buildings around the landing strip, but there is no sign of anyone around. About five miles from here and at a higher elevation is a big house. Whatever is in there is very well protected- the scanners are not able to penetrate the outside of the house."

"Swell," Jonny groused, "we'll be going in blind."

Jessie listened to the exchange idly as she watched the darkness out of the cockpit window. Listening to Hadji read out the scanner readings, an idea began to form in her mind, but for what it would entail – her father would shoot it down in a heartbeat, she was sure of it.

"Jessie?"

Her father's voice shook her out of her train of thought. Looking over at him, she decided to voice her idea. "Dad, I think I know a way we can at least get two people in there. Jonny and I could distract the guards long enough for you and Hadji to get inside."

She saw a look of doubt cross his face before Race protested. "Oh no, we're going in together or not at all."

Hadji tried to interrupt. "Race-"

Race waved him off and said, "We have a better chance of taking this guy heads on since we don't even know how many people are in that house on the hill."

Hadji's voice was more insistent this time. "Race!"

Jessie was going to try and argue her point when she heard a loud noise and looked around, noticing that one of their party was missing from the cockpit. "Where's Jonny?"

Hadji shook his head. "That was what I was trying to tell you two."

Race muttered as he got up quickly. "Damn, I had two hover bikes in the cargo hold."

He rushed out of the cockpit only to return moments later. "Correction, we now only have _one_ hover bike and the cargo hold is open," Race informed. He slammed his hand against the wall of the cockpit in frustration. "We don't have time for this. Hadji, since the hover bikes can only carry two people at a time, I need you to stay behind. Stay in the plane and monitor the communication channels. I was going to check in with Phil's I-1 forces myself when they came into range, but time is short. Can you do this for me?"

Hadji nodded curtly.

"Good," Race replied. Turning to Jessie, he prompted. "Ok, Jessie, we're going."

* * *

Peter led Dr. Quest into the house at gunpoint. Lights were ablaze everywhere and Dr. Quest knew in the back of his mind that he should be more concerned about how to get out of this trap, but he couldn't help but to be fascinated how Peter could power such a massive structure on an isolated island.

He felt the barrel of Peter's pistol dig painfully into his back. "As much as I would like to give you a tour Benton, you have something I want. Go down this hallway here until you reach the room at the end of the hall."

Jarred back to the task at hand, Dr. Quest did as he was told, taking the nearby hallway that his host had indicated. It was long, narrow, and lined with lights, but little else. He slowly walked down the hallway, peering at the doorway at the end of the hall. As he got closer, he could see machinery of all shapes and sizes.

Peter prodded him on inside the room, and that was where he truly gaped. Radar stations flanked one side of the room, while on another wall sat various computer systems tuned into different computer sites and camera feeds.

It was one of the camera feeds that had Dr. Quest in a panic. There was Quest Jet II sitting on the runway only a few feet behind the Dragonfly!

Different men were stationed at each monitor, and when Peter came into the room behind him, he called out to his men. "Status report please."

One of the men looking at the monitor of the airfield called out. "Sir, we have seen three people leave that jet. We were waiting for your orders."

Peter chuckled. "I should have known. The family is never far behind, is it Benton?" He then pointed his pistol right at Benton's head. "The Game is over Benton, and you know what? You are about to lose."

* * *

_Ok, remember when I said this would be the last chapter? My muse wouldn't shut up. The final chapter will be uploaded shortly._


	12. Checkmate

Chapter 12 – Checkmate

Dr. Benton Quest made it a point to never regret things in his life, but at this point he was regretting coming alone.

The fact that his family had followed him regardless didn't do his heart any good. Staring down the barrel of a gun wasn't much better, either. Before he could formulate a response to Peter's current threat, one of the men monitoring the systems in the room spoke up. "Sir! Intruder alert! The perimeter sensors are picking up one heat signature!"

Dr. Quest flinched as Peter ordered his men to intercept the intruder. From what they had said earlier, three people had left the Quest Jet II. Who was the one trying to get their attention?

He had his answer moments later when four guards dragged Jonny into the room and threw him to the ground. Dr. Quest made a move towards his son, but was brought up short by Peter still holding the gun on him.

Peter's voice was sharp and unforgiving. "Benton, you should know better by now: I don't like to play games. Hand me the information or your son will lose his father."

Benton did his best to keep his expression impassive as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small USB flash drive. The guards that had brought in Jonny were well armed and he had no doubt that they would shoot to kill. His eyes met those of his son and he could see the anger building in them. Silently praying that Jonny wouldn't try anything stupid, Benton held out the flash drive in his outstretched hand.

"Take it."

Peter did just that and turned away from him. He walked over to one of his men and handed them the drive.

"Examine the information on this drive. Let me know if there are any abnormalities."

Benton silently prayed that his handiwork would hold up long enough until help came.

* * *

Race urged the hover bike quickly up the ridge towards the large house at the top. He could feel Jessie holding onto him tightly, but he was distracted by trying to come up with strategies for extracting Dr. Quest and Jonny from the main house. Being an agent for Intelligence-1 was a cakewalk compared to this latest fiasco. So much had been left unsaid when he had fought with Benton. He could only hope that they weren't too late.

"Dad, look out!"

At Jessie's warning, Race swore. The headlights from the hover bike shined on something in their path. He was able to come to a quick halt just mere feet from the object in front of them.

Race got off the Hover bike for a closer look and with a sense of dread realized that he was looking at the hover bike that Jonny had taken from the jet. "He's been taken."

Jessie looked around carefully as she got off of their hover bike. "I don't hear anything. Shouldn't there be guards around here?"

"It may be that Maximoff thinks that no one would ever come to this place and kept a minimum amount of guards on hand," Race hypothesized. "Either way, we need to be careful. Judging by these marks in the dirt around the bike, Jonny was forcibly dragged off. Crazy kid, he may have distracted the few guards that were out here, but we still have to be careful. We'll go on foot from here."

Jessie carefully followed her father as they continued up the path. There were small lights lining the path that looked to work off of solar power, for in the moonlight she was just able to see small solar panels on the top of each one. Both Bannons were silent as they traversed the path through its twists and turns until they finally reached the perimeter of the house.

The sheer size of it nearly left Jessie speechless. Judging by her limited moonlit view, the whole place had to be three stories at least, by her estimation. The thing that was truly bothering her was that through every window she could see, there were signs of electricity with lights on and odd glows that could easily be attributed to various electronics. "Dad-"

"I know- this place is on an island that isn't supposed to exist and it's lit up like a Christmas tree," Race replied. "This place is an enigma we have to solve."

Jessie watched as he looked around the area carefully. After a minute, he seemed to spot something.

"Jessie, follow me."

Curious as to her dad's intentions, she followed him over to one window on the ground floor that seemed to be partially obscured by a small tree.

Race peered inside the window and, unlike the others, there seemed to be no activity showing through. In fact, from what he could tell, the room seemed to be some sort of workshop. He could just make out the outline of a large worktable cluttered with various tools in the center of the room. He tried opening the window, but it wouldn't budge. Looking around for something to break the window, Race eyed the small tree beside them.

"Stand back, Jess."

After making sure Jessie was safely out of range, Race then grabbed for one of the smaller and stouter branches near the bottom of the tree. It took a few minutes and quite a bit of effort, but the branch finally broke away from the tree with a loud crunch. With the newly freed tree branch in hand, he then stepped forward and slammed one of the blunt ends hard against the window. There was a spider web of cracks that radiated outward from the force of the impact, but it didn't budge. It took two more well placed swings before the window completely shattered inward.

Jessie stepped forward and looked around once more in amazement. After her dad had done the work she half expected an alarm or siren to sound, but the only noises she heard came from the wind and insects. "This guy really thinks he'll never get a visit."

Race motioned to her quickly. "Oh, I think they know we're here. The point is to move more quickly than they can anticipate. Come on and I'll help you inside."

* * *

In the monitoring room, Peter Maximoff felt like celebrating. Things were going his way, and the only man who knew his plan stood before him. It was such an easy way to get rid of all of his problems at once.

The man that he had handed the flash drive to turned back to him. "Sir, everything looks to be in order. We have the list of names."

"Excellent," he replied. "Well Benton, it's almost time for us to part our ways. It has been a pleasure working with you, but I cannot leave any witnesses to my conquest that are not totally under my control."

"You monster," Benton spat out. "At least let my son go. He's innocent."

"Innocent?" Peter replied mockingly, glancing over at Jonny being covered by two of his guards. "The boy seemed to be all too eager to rush to your defense, my friend. Maybe I was too hasty in my choice of targets."

Swinging his pistol around, Peter pointed his gun at Jonny. "Nothing personal, boy."

Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement and Peter found himself being tackled to the ground. It took a moment to realize that it was Race Bannon that had him. Peter struggled against his strong grip, but found that he could barely move. The gun that he had was forced out of his hand, and it clattered to the ground nearby.

He heard his guards move in with their weapons at the ready. "Keep Dr. Quest and his son covered," Peter quickly ordered the guards. "I will take this one down."

"Not if 'this one' has anything to say about it," he heard Race growl.

Peter then spotted his opportunity. "Let's see how you handle this then, Race Bannon."

His legs were free, and Peter used that to his advantage. Bringing one of his knees up, he caught Race in the midsection. The effect was immediate as Race Bannon let up the pressure on his arms. Peter then was able to force him off, flinging him quickly to the side.

As he quickly scrambled to his feet, Peter found that Race had gotten to his feet as well. Thinking quickly, Peter spotted the discarded gun on the ground and made a dive for it. He managed to grab a hold of it mere seconds before Race got to it, and did the first thing he could think of.

He brought the gun around in a swinging arc, catching Race against the side of his head. Peter grinned in satisfaction as he caught sight of Race's stunned expression before the man collapsed to the ground.

* * *

From her hiding place flush near the doorway, Jessie saw her dad go down hard. Anger ran through her hard and fierce, and she decided to take action. Getting a running start, Jessie ran from her hiding place and rushed at Maximoff. She didn't have a plan, she just wanted to take him down.

She heard Dr. Quest and Jonny shouting at her.

"Jessie, no!"

"Jess!"

Jessie felt an arm wrap around her neck and she was jerked back hard to the point of almost falling on the ground. She cursed her slowness as she realized that Peter's men had guns pointed at Jonny and Dr. Quest as well as her now. Jessie struggled against her captor's grasp, but the grip around her neck was tight.

Peter Maximoff stepped towards her, his face flushed with triumph.

"Well now, this is quite interesting. According to one of my agents, they overheard a girl talking to the good doctor here about someone coming back from the future, someone who told him that there would be an attack on his compound. It's funny that you and your entourage happen to show up here at this time. I don't suppose you have something to tell me."

Jessie thought wildly in desperation. She wasn't about to tell him anything about the time traveling, but if she tried anything, Dr. Quest or Jonny would be in danger. That was when she saw her dad slowly getting up from the ground behind him. He was keeping his moves slow and deliberate, but the guards could still shoot him, unless...

Smiling, Jessie jutted her chin out in defiance. "You know what, Mr. Maximoff? Bite me."

Peter Maximoff roared in rage and made a move towards her, but was then brought short by an arm around his own neck. He recognized Race Bannon's voice hissing sharply into his ear, along with a gun he hadn't seen before pointed at his head. "Move a muscle and you're dead."

Once she saw that her dad had Maximoff well in hand, Jessie swiftly brought her foot down on her captor's, sending him into a howling fit, and in the process releasing her.

The ensuing distraction was enough for Jonny and Dr. Quest to overwhelm their guards and soon they had procured the weapons that had been trained on them. The men that were monitoring the systems saw what had happened and chose to raise their hands in the air in a gesture of surrender, all except for one that was gawking at a monitor flashing a red warning. "Our systems our failing!"

"What? Why?" Peter demanded as he still struggled against Race's grip.

Benton stepped forward with a tired smile on his face. "That would be my doing. You should be careful who you trust, Peter. Not only did I program fake names on that list, I coded a viral worm into the file. Right about now, it should be well into your files, transmitting them to the FBI and Intelligence One. You're through."

As he made the declaration, he heard a disturbance outside the room and braced for anything. There were sounds of rushing footsteps, and for a moment he thought that they were in trouble again. However, he found that his fears were unfounded when he saw Phil Corbin rush in with guns drawn, followed by six I-1 agents.

As his men spread out through the room, Phil came up to him. "Dr. Quest, are you all right?"

Benton handed him the gun that he had taken from one of the guards they had overpowered. "We're fine now that your team is here." He looked over at Race as two of the I-1 agents took Peter into custody. "I take it that I have Race to thank for you showing up?"

Phil nodded. "He was worried about you going off like that, and as soon as he found out the coordinates of where Peter was hiding out he was on the horn to me. I'll go ahead and thank you in advance, Dr. Quest. I heard what you said to Maximoff – with the files that you transmitted to us, we'll easily have enough to convict him and his followers of treason. They'll be lucky if they ever see the light of day again."

Benton sighed in relief. "I'm just glad it's over."

Nodding knowingly, Phil put a hand on his shoulder. "Go ahead and see your family home, Dr. Quest. We've got things well in hand here, and I can always contact you later for a follow-up."

As Phil walked off, Benton braced himself as Jonny tackled him with a fierce hug.

"Dad, you worried us to death," Jonny declared.

In spite of all that happened, Benton laughed, "I worried _you_? Jonny we're going to have to have to have a long talk about being impetuous. It certainly didn't do either of us any favors."

Race walked up to them then, with Jessie hanging close behind him. There was so much left unsaid when he had left suddenly on his impromptu plan, but before Benton could apologize, Race started. "You know, Benton, we have a lot to talk about when we get back."

Benton realized an opening when he saw it, and decided to apologize right there. "I know, and I am sorry Race. I guess I took what happened with Peter a little too personally."

Jessie interrupted their conversation with a yawn. "How about we sort this out after we get home?"

He laughed again. "Out of the mouths of babes, but I think Jessie has a point. We are all tired and it's been a long day. Let's go home."

* * *

Jessie was bone tired and leaned heavily back in her seat as her dad guided the Quest Jet II into the air. The adrenaline that had been fueling her for the past few hours had finally left in a rush. It was all over. Everyone was safe, and her brief glimpse into a bleak future wouldn't come true.

Jonny and Hadji had opted to travel back with Dr. Quest on board the Dragonfly, so it was pretty quiet for the trip back home. With a sigh, she stared out the cockpit window.

"Ponchita? Are you all right?"

Her father's voice was soft, and she smiled as she turned to look at him. "I'm fine, dad. I'm just happy to see everything back on the right course."

"We went through quite the test," Race replied with a tired smile. "With all of our differences, we make quite the unusual family don't we?"

Jessie nodded in agreement. At one time she couldn't imagine a future without her father and Dr, Quest, Jonny, and Hadji, but now that she had lived through the possibility, Jessie knew that she couldn't live without them.

The first few glints of sunlight were coming over the horizon, lighting up the sky in a brilliant display of color, and Jessie smiled at the sight. The future was going to be bright one indeed.

_It's done. Finally. Yes! I have to give a big thank you to Goddess Evie, who has been there to help me by editing this massive story and providing valuable feedback, despite her own busy schedule. It was indeed a pleasure. I also want to give a big thank you to Sigokat, who helped me with the weapon areas of this story. She too provided valuable feedback that I found indispensable._

_I'll be back eventually with another idea, but for now, I think it's time for a little rest. _

_Hope you enjoy,_

_Time Guardian_


End file.
